Srinagar, Aug 9: It was magic on display and yes it was Messi magic with Lionel Messi displaying his football magic on the ground as Barcelona sink Napoli 3-1 at home to cruise into quarter final of the UEFA Champions on 4-2 aggregate. In quaterfinal Barcelona will be facing German champions Bayern Munich who also made it to the quaterfinal.
Barcelona had a shaky start but took the lead in the 10th minute with a powerful header from a corner by Clement Lenglet before Messi scored a superb second in the 23rd, seeing off four defenders to curl the ball into the far bottom corner. It was a goal that had all kinds of Messi magic attached to it and was not less than a wonder goal. After going past through defenders Messi went down and it looked like that play would stop or the ball would be lost. But then in a moment Messi produced a magic curling shot through defenders into Napoli goal despite being off balance and when no one expected it to happen.
Messi had the ball in the net again soon after following a superb team move but the goal was harshly ruled out for handball by the Argentine following a VAR review, although Messi later won a penalty which Luis Suarez converted for Barca’s third.
Napoli got one back when Lorenzo Insigne converted a spot kick at the end of the first half and was the better side after the interval but Barca survived to set up a mouth-watering clash with Bayern in Lisbon next Friday.
“We got the result we wanted. We’ve spent two weeks preparing for the game, knowing how difficult it would be and so it proved as they made it tough for us in certain moments,” said Suarez.
“We were taken by surprise at the start but we scored first. If they had scored it would have caused uncertainty but we managed the game well, ” He added.