Leo Messi came off the bench to play a key role as Barcelona edged into the semi-finals of the Champions League and maintained their hopes of winning a third European Cup at Wembley, helping to create the equaliser which sent the Catalans through on away goals. Barcelona had hoped not to need him but Javier Pastore’s strike forced their hand and, although they progressed to a unique sixth consecutive semi-final, this was not the way they would have wanted it.
The sense of vulnerability was palpable throughout a game in which they were never safe and improvements must be made if they are to reach a third final in five years. Barcelona were unable to defeat Paris Saint-Germain in the two clashes and there may yet be a price to pay: Messi was called upon ahead of time and he finished the game limping slightly, while the converted centre-back Adriano was taken off with cramp. Another defender injured. Javier Mascherano and Carles Puyol may not return until the final weeks of the season.
Barcelona lacked the speed of passing that has characterised them in recent years; even Sergio Busquets, arguably their second most consistent performer this season, appeared off the pace. Until Messi came on, the home side looked like they lacked confidence and the final whistle was greeted with relief. The best chances fell PSG’s way and Barcelona had only one more shot on target than the visitors. But, when they needed him, they had Messi. The problem really was that they did need him.
Messi started on the bench, with Cesc Fábregas taking his place as the false No9 alongside Pedro and David Villa in the front three. For Fábregas, it is the position in which he probably feels most comfortable. In his last match there, four days ago, he had scored the first hat-trick of his career. In the opening minutes, it appeared that the alternative could be an effective one here too, with a flurry of approaches, but the momentum soon drained away and this was not his night.
This was a largely disjointed opening in which Barcelona failed to exercise control and as the half progressed, they would come to suffer too. And not, as might have been expected, with the ball delivered in the air, but the speed of PSG’s runners into the space between defenders.
Midway through the half, the game’s best opportunity fell to Ezequiel Lavezzi, when Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s perfectly weighted pass put him one on one with Victor Valdés. The goalkeeper was out quickly to stop with his legs and he saved again four minutes later when Marco Verratti found Ibrahimovic on the right and his cross found Lucas. From the corner, another save – this time diving to reach Alex’s header as it bounce up off the turf.
Valdés kept Barcelona in the game but five minutes into the second half he was beaten. Ibrahimovic, dangerous throughout in the role of facilitator to the other forwards, combined swiftly with Pastore, twice exchanging passes with the Argentinian and sending him into the huge space that lay behind Barcelona’s advanced defence. Dani Alves chased but to no avail and Pastore’s left-footed shot squirmed past Valdés and into the net.
On the Barcelona bench, Messi pulled his socks up. A huge roar greeted him as he made his way to the touchline and began to warm up. His task could have been even greater, perhaps even insurmountable, but Ibrahimovic’s clever pull-back did not meet with the finish it deserved.
In the process, Adriano pulled up injured and had to be substituted by Marc Bartra. Before he could make it on, Alves blasted Barcelona’s best chance over from Jordi Alba’s cross. As Bartra ran on, there was a huge roar: not for him but because coming on behind him, in place of Fábregas, was Messi. The atmosphere changed and the impact was swift.
Just nine minutes after coming on, Messi collected the ball 20 yards from goal, dashed away from Pastore and evaded Verratti to find Villa in the area. He controlled the ball and laid it back to Pedro, who thumped a clean finish into the far corner. The intensity of the celebration, with Pedro leading a dash towards the bench, and Messi clenching his fist, spoke of the relief.
Barcelona were transformed and so were PSG. Not that the home side were safe and not that the nerves deserted them entirely. Andrés Iniesta produced a gorgeous turn in the area but put his shot wide with three minutes left, while at the other end Lucas almost bundled his way through. The match, and the tie, remained on a knife-edge. There were whistles now, the noise rising as they pleaded with the referee to end it. When he finally did, just moments after Ibrahimovic’s header was caught by Valdés, the Camp Nou erupted. Another semi-final.
Bayern it is then. As had seemed likely right from the first 27 seconds of this tie, when David Alaba scored the opening goal in Bavaria last week, the German champions progressed to the semi-finals of the Champions League with a fluid, robust and enjoyably controlled 2-0 victory in Turin to complete a 4-0 win on aggregate.
It would be pushing it to say Bayern swaggered through this tie: they didn’t need to, instead exposing the limitations of Antonio Conte’s energetic Juventus simply by turning up and being reliably Bayern. Here they were driven on by Bastian Schweinsteiger, shading control of midfield from Andrea Pirlo as the match went on, and by a fine display of lone-centre-forward craft from Mario Mandzukic, scorer of the knockout-blow first goal in Turin.
“If you win 2-0 away against Juventus it is an amazing result,” Arjen Robben, a constant menace on the right of midfield, said afterwards. “It was a great performance from us. We’d like to be kept apart [from Borussia Dortmund in the next round] but you don’t have a choice in these things. What comes, comes. They are big games with four great teams.”
For all Bayern’s annihilating dominance in the first leg, this had seemed likely to be a more fraught occasion at the tightly packed Juventus Stadium, a high-spec new-build fortress constructed on the site of the old Stadio Delle Alpi. The 2-0 smothering in Bavaria was a traumatic experience for Italy’s trophy club, a night when this self-consciously muscular Juventus was outpressed and outrun as well as outpassed.
Giorgio Chiellini, who spent an anguished, sleepless night afterwards, had promised Juve would present a different face to the world after the most shattering defeat of two years of burgeoning Conte-ism: and Juve were primed to deliver the expected riposte in the opening exchanges here. In the absence of the suspended Arturo Vidal, Pirlo was flanked by a five-man midfield featuring the lopingly muscular Paul Pogba, given a chance to reaffirm his fine progress since graduating from Manchester United’s Carling Cup team.
Juventus duly set off at a helter-skelter pace, swarming around the opposition in Conte’s favoured blitz-football style, but it was Bayern who created the first real chance after nine minutes. Franck Ribéry’s cut-back from the right was almost forced home by Mandzukic at the near post, the Croat’s attempted dink skewing wide.
The Italian champions continued to press with more energy than precision on an unremittingly boisterous night inside this steeply banked aluminium bowl, albeit the biggest home cheer of the opening 20 minutes was for Pogba shrugging Ribéry magisterially to the floor in a tussle for the ball.
The moment seemed to spark the home team, and Pirlo in particular, whose contribution until then had been to jog about a little near the centre circle and occasionally give the ball away.
Juve’s first real chance arrived shortly afterwards as Philipp Lahm’s rash tackle offered Pirlo a free-kick opportunity just outside the penalty area. His powerful drive, delivered from a deceptively meek run-up, rebounded to safety off Manuel Neuer’s fists, but Pirlo was finding his groove now, conducting Juve’s movements from his deep-playmaker position like a ship’s captain at the wheel. A flighted pass to the left put Pogba in for a driven cross that evaded the lurking Fabio Quagliarella as Bayern began to defend deeper.
For all their pressure Juve always seemed a pass short of getting in on goal and before long Ribéry and Bastian Schweinsteiger were again conducting midfield. A goalless first half left Bayern still chugging calmly towards the semi-finals.
Predictably the home team emerged energised after the break, once again hurling themselves into the space around their opponents. Twice Juventus stole possession near the Bayern goal, Quagliarella shooting just wide with the stadium already on its feet. Instead, though, it was the pie slice of Bayern fans in the far left corner under the banner “Red Power” who continued to bounce, and their team who came closest to scoring after 58 minutes. A neat lay-off from Mandzukic, superbly adhesive as the lone striker, found Robben just outside the area. His measured left-foot shot hit the outside of the post.
The goal was coming. Five minutes later Mandzukic was fouled to the right of the Juventus penalty area. Schweinsteiger’s free-kick was temptingly whipped in and with Buffon parrying Javi Martinez’s flick Mandzukic himself headed home.
Claudio Pizarro’s 91st-minute goal, slipping the ball past Gianluigi Buffon after a lovely pass from Schweinsteiger, was a final garnish. Outclassed by one of Europe’s current superpowers, Juventus can reflect with some pride on their run to the quarter-finals, including the elimination of England’s own European champions at the group stages. Bayern, with plenty in reserve, will take some stopping from here. (Guardian)
