Lionel Messi Stars As Barca Sweep Past Man United

Apr 16, 2019 1510

By Joshua Walters

Lionel Messi scored twice at both ends of Philippe Coutinho's goal as Barcelona swept away Manchester United to progress to the semi-final stage of the Champions League on Tuesday.

The 3-0 win in the second leg quarter-final game at Camp Nou means Barcelona have eliminated Manchester United 4-0 on goal aggregate, following the Catalans' 1-0 win at Old Trafford in the first leg last week.

Manchester United nearly opened the score in the 2nd minute as Marcus Rashford struck the crossbar, before referee Felix Brych reversed his decision to award Barcelona a penalty after consulting the Video Assistant Referee.

Rashford’s 14th-minute goal-bound shot was saved by Marc Andre Ter Stegen, three minutes before Messi broke the deadlock by curling the ball into the bottom left corner after nutmegging Fred.

Messi increased the tally with the second goal in the space of four minutes as his shot from the edge of the box went through the hands of David De Gea in the 20th minute.

The Barcelona captain nearly completed his hat-trick in the 26th minute when he latched on to Jordi Alba’s cut-back pass to hit a whisker of the right post.

Ivan Rakitic forced a magnificent save from De Gea as his header was calmly collected by the goalkeeper in the 42nd minute, and the Spaniard made another magnificent save on the stroke of half-time to deny Sergi Roberto from scoring with a close-range effort.

Messi had a goal-bound shot deflected to safety just after the restart, and Philippe Coutinho made it three for the hosts in the 61st minute with a thunderbolt into the top corner of the right post.

Messi missed narrowly with an overhead kick in the 64th minute, six minutes before Jesse Lingard failed to find the back of the net with a long-range shot.

Alexis Sanchez could not grab a consolation goal for the Red Devils in the dying minutes of the game as his effort was palmed away by Ter Stegen before De Gea stopped Messi from grabbing his hat-trick by punching his shot away in the injury time.