Gary Neville has criticised and waxed lyrical about several matches involving Barcelona as a pundit; on Wednesday, the Englishman got a taste of how scary it is to be in the opposition camp when the likes of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar run wild.
Barcelona were in the goalscoring mood again during the first leg of the Copa Del Rey semifinal, hitting seven past Valencia at the Camp Nou, with Suarez grabbing four goals and Messi a hat-trick.
Neville, yet to taste victory in eight La Liga matches as Valencia manager, had hoped for some respite in the Copa Del Rey, but it was alarmingly one-way traffic, with Suarez opening the scoring in the seventh minute. Neymar dispossessed Andre Gomes inside Valencia's own half, before slipping a ball through to Suarez, who made no mistake with the finish.
The Uruguay international then finished off a nice move involving Gerard Pique and Aleix Vidal to make it 2-0 to Barcelona, before Messi got in on the act, running onto a clever backheel from Neymar to provide the expected finish.
The night went from bad to worse for Valencia just before halftime, as Shkodran Mustafi was given a red card for denying Messi a goalscoring opportunity. Neymar, though, missed the penalty on the stroke of halftime, but the goals would only keep coming in the second 45.
Messi made it 4-0, scoring the 500th goal of his career, on 58 minutes, before completing his hat-trick in the 74th minute. Suarez added two late goals to complete the rout and compound Neville's misery.
"This was one of my most painful nights in football," Neville was quoted as saying by The Guardian. "The scoreline is unacceptable. I have not enjoyed it. I won't sleep well. I didn't like what I saw.
"The fans didn't deserve that. We have to recover incredibly quickly."
The inevitable question of if the former Manchester United fullback would quit was put to him, not once, not twice, but three times, but Neville refused to throw in the towel.
"Positivity has been immovable in my life," he added. "I last had doubts as a player 18 years ago and from that moment on I developed a mechanism to deal with situations like this. Be clear, we have to deliver on Sunday [against Real Betis in the La Liga]."
