The word of the night was remontada. It means comeback. And this was the madre of all remontadas. If there was any doubt about the team to beat in this season’s Champions League, Barcelona reconfirmed the identity of Europe’s most potent force.
Both a club and a player. We are watching a genius, you do know that, don’t you? In Lionel Messi, Barcelona have a player as great as any to have walked the earth. Up there with Pele, with Diego Maradona, with Johan Cruyff or Zinedine Zidane.
It no longer matters that he has the good fortune to play in a magnificent team. What he does on nights like this transcends such petty quibbles. These were his 52nd and 53rd goals of the season. It is simply untrue to suggest that any player of talent would score them, surrounded by these exceptional team-mates.
Messi is a phenomenon, a class apart, he defines matches like no other contemporary, not even the mighty Cristiano Ronaldo.
Barcelona had to win by more than two goals to progress here and Messi had the match won within the space of 10 minutes.
The start that Barcelona made, with his inspiration, was so startlingly good that Milan never recovered. Messi had his team a goal ahead after five minutes before adding another on 40, but Barcelona’s dominance was almost total in the moments between.
He shocked Milan with his brilliance, baffled them with his imagination, punished them with the precision of his finishing. It was one of the greatest performances in the history of this competition.
The game had barely taken shape when Messi stamped his mark on it. He played a 1-2 with Xavi Hernandez that somehow charted a path through the six — yes, six — Milan players who had surrounded the pair, before finishing with a left-foot shot so perfect in its placing that goalkeeper Christian Abbiati remained on his spot, flat-footed.
The second was no less clinical. Milan captain Massimo Ambrosini lost the ball to Andres Iniesta, who sent the ball through to Messi. He in turn threaded his shot through the legs of Philippe Mexes and out of Abbiati’s despairing grasp.
No hand for Messi in the decisive third, but make no mistake, this was his victory throughout.
Milan looked so intimidated by his presence, so vulnerable to his wit that, having softened them up, Messi could afford to take a back seat just once.
As it was, Javier Mascherano won the ball in the heart of the pitch, found Iniesta, who found Xavi and eventually David Villa — his finish as exquisitely placed as Messi’s in the first half. It doesn’t happen by accident, this stuff.
Just like the harrying and chasing that so unsettled Milan, the lightning speed with which Barcelona recovered possession, when it goes right, every painstaking minute on the training ground can be seen in Barcelona’s play. The goal that gave the scoreline air was straight from the textbook.
Snuffing out a Milan threat, then breaking quickly, with purpose. No taking the ball into the corner flag to waste precious seconds here; they hit Milan where it hurts: in the net. At this point, a Milan goal would have been fatal and deafening whistles and catcalls greeted every second of possession by Massimiliano Allegri’s side.
They won a free-kick some 40 yards from goal which Robinho and Sulley Muntari contrived to mess up, losing possession. Milan broke. Messi played in Alexis Sanchez whose cross found overlapping left back Jordi Alba.
The remontada was complete. It had been a horrid and sobering experience for Milan, whose fans were hushed in their Nou Camp eyrie. A member of Europe’s traditional elite, they will have hated being so publicly mastered.
The way Barcelona began the match was, quite literally, stunning. Neutrals who had been so impressed with Milan in the first leg were stunned. Milan were stunned. Even the home support, whipped into a frenzy of noise and excitement, seemed unusually affected by the ferocity with which their team attacked the game.
Good Italian teams are always strong defensively. Barcelona’s nil in the San Siro was as important as Milan’s two.
Since the European Cup was reimagined as the Champions League, no team have qualified in the knockout stage having trailed 2-0 from the first leg; 3-1, yes, Barcelona themselves did it against Dynamo Kiev in 1994.
The absence of an away goal, though, is considered a mortal blow. Every time Milan had possession, the fear inside Nou Camp was palpable. They jeered to cover their tension until Barcelona regained possession. Mostly, they didn’t have to wait long.
As clinical as Barcelona were, snapping and fizzing passes like flippers and rebounds on a pinball machine, so Milan were loose and rattled. Their game plan to half-court press, let Barcelona have the ball deep, regroup in their own territory and thicken midfield and the central areas, was horribly exposed early on by the Catalans decision to spread play wide.
They did it as the best teams often do, go outside to work a way back in. Milan were stretched by the tactic and by Barcelona’s 3-4-3 formation. The pride they felt in limiting the best footballers in the world at the San Siro soon evaporated along with their confidence. The defence was tortured, particularly right back Ignazio Abate.
He appeared fortunate not to be judged more harshly for a challenge on Pedro Rodriguez in the penalty area with the score already 1-0. Soon after, a panicked pass back to goalkeeper Cristian Abbiati almost let Villa in for Barcelona’s second.
Abbiati chased from goal and missed his kick completely, but luckily so did Villa. The ball trundled across the penalty area to safety.
In Abbiati’s defence, most goalkeepers would have been a little flustered by then.
He had already been forced to make an excellent save, tipping an Iniesta shot on to the bar. Another effort, low from Xavi in the 17th minute, was tipped around the far post for a corner.
Of course, it could have been very different for Milan had their best opportunity been converted a minute before Barcelona scored their second.
The gamble of the night was to relegate Barcelona’s own captain, leader, legend Carles Puyol to the bench behind the diminutive Mascherano, whose pace was preferred against Milan’s strikers.
The flaw in this thinking was exposed on 38 minutes when Mascherano could not get the height required to clear a harmless-looking through-ball, instead glancing it on to Milan forward M’Baye Niang, who was left 40 yards from goal with only Victor Valdes in his eyeline.
The problem being that 40 yards is quite a distance over which to think about scoring the goal that could decide the tie and Niang missed the target, watching in anguish as his shot struck a post.
He held his head in his hands. When he finally lifted it again, it was only to see Barcelona score.
source:dailymail
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