FC Barcelona vs. AC Milan: The Remontada Edition (4-0)
Jordi Alba and I apparently feel the same way about this result...
Even biased Barcelona fan that I am, I would never have predicted this victory. Barca arrived at the second leg of this Champions League round without an away goal, having lost to AC Milan 0-2 at the San Siro. In order to stay in the tournament, they had to score at least two goals in regular time AND keep a clean sheet, which they had not managed to do from mid-January to their Saturday match against Deportivo. In that recent match, I had seen promising signs of a sharper Barca, a hungrier Barca... but they had still only scored two goals total against the lowest team in the league standings. Tonight they were going to have to do much, much better.
And they did.
Any doubts I'd had were swept away within the first few minutes of play. Acting captain Xavi Hernandez, just recovered from yet another hamstring injury, not only didn't slow the team down, he led them in one of the finest performances I'd ever seen. Tonight's possession play had a purpose - Barca obviously understood that they needed to score early and often. And so they did, beginning with Leo Messi's left-footed chip over the stunned keeper just five minutes in after a deft one-two with Xavi. Before the end of the half, he had scored his second, this time off an assist from Andres Iniesta, although not before a defensive mistake by Javier Mascherano left a Milan striker alone in front of an open goal, only pure luck and the post averting disaster.
Ten minutes into the second half, David Villa had his turn after patiently playing center forward with few touches for so long, with Xavi again providing the assist. Racing right past his delighted teammates, David slid on his knees, head thrown back, in front of the cameras, his feelings of triumph so palpable that tears came to my eyes. And even then Barca didn't back off. Naturally, the last ten minutes of the match were the most nerve-wracking, since if AC Milan had scored, they still would have won 4-3 in the aggregate, but with Carles Puyol coming on for Masche and Adriano taking the place of Pedro, the Barca defense managed to hold firm. And it was leftback Jordi Alba who scored the last goal in extra time, surging up in front of frantically backtracking defenders to receive a long cross from substitute Alexis Sanchez and nutmeg the hapless keeper.
It was a night with many moments of individual brilliance - Messi was mesmerizing, Alba was a bullet, Xavi bossed like a boss, Busi seemed to be everywhere at once - but the most impressive aspect was how well Barca were playing collectively again. They came out fighting from the first second, pressed hard, always made it their business to get the ball back, and anticipated each other like mindreaders in the midfield. Truthfully, I hadn't seen them play a match like this for... way too long. But when they do, this team is unbeatable. What a beautiful game!
Illa Villa maravilla!
SO MANY FEELS!!!!!!
And once again, Andres delivers, both during and after the match
You just know that Andres took this shot of Victor too
If I had to pick only one Man of the Match, I guess it would be this guy
But this is the real reason that we won tonight