{"id":114361,"date":"2015-05-07T07:47:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T07:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=114361"},"modified":"2015-05-07T07:47:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T07:47:30","slug":"messi-stars-in-barca-win-over-munich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=114361","title":{"rendered":"Messi stars in Barca win over Munich"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barcelona have now won 16 of their last 17 games<\/strong><\/p>\n

Guardiola endures humbling return to Nou Camp<\/strong>
\n Messi, Suarez & Neymar have 111 goals this season<\/strong>
\n Deportivo in 2004 only side to overturn three-goal CL lead<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lionel Messi scored twice as Barcelona struck three times in the final 13 minutes of the first leg to whisk their Champions League semi-final tie away from a stubborn Bayern Munich side.<\/p>\n

The hosts seemed set for a frustrating night before Messi fired a low shot home from the edge of the area.
\nThree minutes later he skipped past Jerome Boateng and dinked home coolly.<\/p>\n

Led by ex-Barca boss Pep Guardiola, Bayern pushed for an away goal and were punished again as Neymar raced clear.<\/p>\n

Until the devastating conclusion, the Germans had produced an excellent tactical display.<\/p>\n

Firing blanks
\nBayern Munich failed to get a shot on target for the first time in a Champions League game since losing 2-1 to Bordeaux in October 2009.<\/p>\n

Bordeaux defender Michael Ciani scored at both ends for the French side.<\/p>\n

Stripped of the twin attacking threats of the injured Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, they frustrated the hosts for large periods and could have had a goal of their own had Robert Lewandowski connected cleanly with Thomas Muller\u2019s cross.<\/p>\n

But while Guardiola\u2019s four trophy-filled years at the Nou Camp had been based on monopolising possession and patient build-up, the Barcelona that has emerged in his absence is a more dynamic animal.<\/p>\n

Their attacking trio of Luis Suarez, Messi and Neymar \u2013 while never entirely shackled \u2013 had seemed well-guarded after an open initial 15 minutes, but they burst into life at the end.<\/p>\n

Guardiola predicted before the match that it was \u201cimpossible\u201d to stifle Messi, but goalkeeper Manuel Neuer\u2019s hurried free-kick that gifted Barcelona the lead was very avoidable.<\/p>\n

As possession turned over the Argentina forward took advantage of a pocket of space to fire home.<\/p>\n

If Messi\u2019s first was preventable, his second was irresistible as he left Boateng floundering and deftly lifted the ball over the giant frame of Neuer.<\/p>\n

Guardiola\u2019s opening gambit on his return to Catalonia had been a back three of Rafinha, Boateng and Medhi Benatia, but that was hastily re-jigged as an under-staffed defence was initially stretched horribly out of shape.<\/p>\n

If that tactical mistake went unpunished, Barcelona were more ruthless as Bayern pushed forward late on and Neymar scampered clear in injury time to seemingly end the tie as a contest.<\/p>\n

Bayern require more of the fighting spirit that saw them recover from 3-1 adrift against Porto in the previous round.<\/p>\n

Ominously for English teams it was a match that suggested a chasm in class \u2013 rather than a statistical anomaly \u2013 is behind their recent absence from the latter stages of the competition.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barcelona have now won 16 of their last 17 games Guardiola endures humbling return to Nou Camp Messi, Suarez & Neymar have 111 goals this season Deportivo in 2004 only side to overturn three-goal CL lead Lionel Messi scored twice as Barcelona struck three times in the final 13 minutes of the first leg to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":114362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-114361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}