Robertson: I feel gutted to shove Messi's head & ruffle his hair in UCL semis

Reds' right back Robertson has accepted an interview with Daily Mail to share three important moments in his life. In which, he mentioned the bust-up with Messi in the semi final of Champions League last season. 

Robertson's third moment is the first minute of the Miracle of Anfield last May when Liverpool start the second leg of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona 3-0 down. Lionel Messi sprints forward and Fabinho and Robertson halt his run on the edge of the box. Messi thinks it should be a free-kick and indicates as much.

Play moves on. Messi sits on the turf. Robertson runs in the direction of play and then stops for a moment. He puts both hands on the back of Messi’s head and half shoves him, half ruffles his hair, then runs on. Messi looks up, surprise etched all over his face.

Liverpool fans love him for this, too. They love him for the statement of intent. They love him for the boldness of it. They love the iconoclasm of it. And amid the joy of one of the greatest occasions club football in this country has witnessed, amid wild celebrations of Liverpool’s 4-0 win that night, it is remembered as one of the game’s seminal moments, a symbol of what was to come. ‘When I look back on things I don’t really regret anything because I feel as if everything is experience that makes you what you are,’ Robertson says. ‘But I do look back on that moment with Messi as one regret. I don’t like seeing it. When I saw it afterwards I was gutted.

‘We all had the attitude that day that nothing was standing in our way to get to that final and we created that atmosphere around the stadium and me and Fabinho were tracking him and there was a tangle of legs and we were on the floor. To do that to the greatest player that has ever played…

‘I have nothing but respect for him and Barcelona, but we went into that game with the attitude that we were 3-0 down, we needed a miracle, we needed something special and if that little thing stopped the best player in the world playing to his highest potential…

‘But I do regret it. That’s not me as a person. That’s not my personality. But that night a lot of things happened that you don’t really remember. There was no thought process behind it. We were right up for the game. The fans were roaring and you get caught up in it. You’re a human being. We were 3-0 down in the semi-final of the Champions League, which we wanted to put right from the season before. It was the loudest changing room I have been in before the game. You could see the focus and the determination in all of us and maybe I went over the line.’