Messi helps Barca sink Napoli to attain last eight
A fired-up Lionel Messi led Barcelona to a 3-1 win in the home to Napoli on Saturday for a 4-2 aggregate victory which took the club in to the Champions League quarter-finals for the 13th consecutive season where they face Bayern Munich.
The Catalans 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 excellent second in the 23rd, seeing off four defenders to curl the ball in to the far bottom corner.
Messi had the ball in the web again soon after carrying out a superb team move but the goal was harshly eliminated 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 an area kick at the end of the first half and were the better side following the interval but Barca survived to create a mouth-watering clash with Bayern in the ultimate Eight tournament in Lisbon next Friday.
"We got the effect we wanted. We've spent two weeks preparing for the overall game, knowing how difficult it could be therefore it proved because they made it tough for all of us using moments," said Suarez.
"We were taken by surprise at the start but we scored first. If they had scored it could have caused uncertainty but we managed the game well."
Messi had sounded the alarm after Barcelona's rusty performance in the 1-1 attract the last-16 first leg back February, saying they stood no potential for winning Europe's top prize, which includes eluded them since 2015, unless they improved.
He would have been worried by Barca's stuttering start which saw Napoli swarm all over the home side's area and Dries Mertens clip the crossbar in the next minute with a scuffed shot.
But Napoli's slack defending allowed Lenglet to score with a free of charge header which settled Barca nerves while Messi effectively killed the tie off along with his goal and by winning the penalty by chasing down Kalidou Koulibaly in the area and earning a foul.
However, the actual fact Napoli ended the game so well, with Hirving Lozano hitting the post and Arkadiusz Milik's header eliminated for offside, put into the sense that Barca will battle to beat Bayern, who thrashed Chelsea 7-1 on aggregate.
