Messi masterclass downs Dortmund
A masterclass from Lionel Messi guided Barcelona to a 3-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday night in Champions League Group F action at the Camp Nou.
The Argentine scored a goal and had two assists to lead the Catalans to all three points, which cements their place in the last 16. A late surge from Dortmund made for a nervy final 15 minutes, but overall the night belonged to Messi, who stood head and shoulders above the other 21 players on the pitch.
Head coach Ernesto Valverde had to do some shifting around in his starting XI due to the injuries of full-backs Nelson Semedo and Jordi Alba, plus the suspension of centre-back Gerard Pique. In their place came in Sergi Roberto, Junior Firpo and Samuel Umtiti respectively, while in midfield Ivan Rakitic got the nod. Meanwhile, forward Antoine Griezmann found himself on the bench.
Dortmund nearly scored in the first minute of play, as Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen was forced into a save on Nico Schulz with the follow-up effort going wide. Later in the half Barcelona thought they had taken the lead after a nice link-up between Messi and Luis Suarez, but the Uruguayan was correctly adjudged to be offside.
There was more bad news, too, for Barcelona with the familiar sight of Ousmane Dembele sitting on the turf with an injury, requiring an early substitution of the former Dortmund man, who was replaced by Griezmann.
After being nipped by the flag the first time, at the second time of asking the Messi-Suarez connection would bear fruit resulting in a 1-0 lead for the hosts. A blocked Suarez pass for Junior rolled right to Messi, who one-timed a pass to Suarez and the finish was clinical for the goal.
Dortmund weren't helping themselves with errors either and a mistake from Mats Hummels paved the way for a 2-0 Barcelona lead. The centre-back played a ball right to Frenkie de Jong, leading to a one-two combination between Messi and Suarez that the Argentine finished off.
Barcelona continued the momentum into the second stanza and only a fine stop from Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Burki prevented Griezmann from scoring the third. Dortmund started to find their footing and carved out a few chances, the best a Julian Brandt shot that forced Ter Stegen into a reaction save on the hour mark.
The German side would come to rue the miss, as Barcelona extended the advantage to three when Messi spearheaded a counter-attack that saw him feed Griezmann on the left and this time the Frenchman beat Burki to make it 3-0.
But Barcelona could be faulted for letting their guard down after the Messi goal. The Argentine did almost score via an ambitious free-kick that kissed the crossbar, but Dortmund started having their best moments of the match down three goals, and they pulled one back when Jadon Sancho took advantage of some slack defending and fired into the top right corner to cut the gap to 3-1.
Valverde brought on Arturo Vidal for Rakitic to have a bit more muscle in midfield, but Dortmund stayed on the front foot and they nearly had a second when a Sancho striked looked goal-bound, but Ter Stegen's hand and the crossbar kept it a two-goal lead for the Catalan, which held until the final whistle.
Source: Marca
