Bradley Barcola has already done something that only seven Liverpool players have ever managed

Bradley Barcola has already done something that only seven Liverpool players have ever managed Bradley Barcola Hat-Trick Puts Him on Liverpool’s Elite Champions League List Bradley Barcola has had a slow start at Liverpool. That is over now. In Linz, the French forward delivered the first hat-trick of his senior club career and did it cleanly, decisively and without fuss. Three chances taken, three finishes delivered properly, and suddenly the conversation changes. Liverpool beat LASK with Barcola at the centre of everything that mattered in attack, and he now joins a very short list of Reds to score a Champions League hat-trick. That list is exclusive because Liverpool’s history in this competition, in its modern format, was not always full of nights like this. For a long time, these moments were rare. Very rare. Champions League hat-trick company Before 2017, only two Liverpool players had managed a Champions League treble. Michael Owen was the first, scoring three against Spartak Moscow in the 2002/03 group stage. Then came Yossi Benayoun, whose hat-trick arrived in an 8-0 dismantling of Besiktas at Anfield five years later. That tells you plenty. Liverpool were not regulars, and they were not consistently dominant enough in Europe to keep producing these stat lines. Once the club re-established itself among the elite, those nights started to come around more often. Philippe Coutinho struck three in a 7-0 win over Spartak in 2017. Sadio Mane followed with the only Liverpool knockout stage hat-trick in the Champions League, scoring three in a 5-0 last-16 victory over Porto at the Dragao in 2018. Barcola follows major Liverpool names Then came Diogo Jota, who hit three against Atalanta in 2020, a performance that quickly showed what he would become for Liverpool. Mohamed Salah eventually added his name too, and did it in suitably absurd fashion, scoring the fastest hat-trick in Champions League history, six minutes and 12 seconds against Rangers in 2022. Before Barcola, the most recent man on the list was Luis Diaz, whose treble against Bayer Leverkusen in 2024 stood out as one of his best displays in a Liverpool shirt. Now Barcola is the eighth Liverpool player to do it in the competition. No need to overcomplicate it. That matters. What Barcola hat-trick means for Liverpool The important part is not simply the statistic. It is the manner of it. Barcola’s finishing was sharp, calm and varied. That is what catches the eye. Liverpool did not need a messy rebound specialist or a player padding numbers late on. They got a forward who looked certain of his decisions. He came into the season with questions around adaptation and output. Fair enough. New club, new demands, new expectations. But this was the sort of European performance that cuts through doubt quickly. If Liverpool are going deep in the Champions League, they need another reliable scorer beyond the obvious names. Barcola may have just made his case in the clearest possible terms. One big night does not settle everything, but a hat-trick in Europe tends to move things along.