Barcelona ran away with all three points against host Tottenham in the UEFA Champions League at the Wembley Stadium. Lionel Messi was the focal point as the Argentine scored a brace to inspire his team to 4-2 victory in England.
The north London club was looking to bounce back from defeat in their opening Group B clash at Inter Milan last time out, but they were without Christian Eriksen, Mousa Dembele, Jan Vertonghen, Dele Alli and Serge Aurier.
Barcelona leads through some sheer class only 92 seconds in. Messi is allowed to pick a pass on the half-way line, and he doesn’t pass it up by bending a ball just inside of Trippier to find Alba’s run. Lloris comes way off his line to try to claim it but Alba is there first and pulls it back to Coutinho who slots into an empty net from 18 yards.
The Blaugrana scored the second goal in fine style, as Ivan Rakitic leathers a volley in off the post from 25 yards.
Messi’s clipped ball inside from wide finds Coutinho whose air shot looks like it lets Tottenham off the hook, but the Brazilian keeps it alive and fires it back to the edge of the box. Rakitic is there and thumps it off the near post and beyond Hugo Lloris. The First half ended with Barcelona edging out the North London side.
Tottenham pulled one back in the seven minutes after the restart through their star man Harry Hane Kane leaves Semedo on his back-side before curling into the far corner. That’s 10 in 12 for him in the Champions League.
Spurs countered following that Messi chance and reached Kane just inside the area. He thought better than shooting on his left, cut back inside to take Semedo out of proceedings and finished brilliantly into the far corner.
It took only four minutes for Barcelona to restore their two goals lead through their Captain Lionel Messi. The Argentine starts and finishes the move that might have killed Spurs off the game. He arches a ball out to the left where Alba is waiting, and his low cross is left by Suarez for the Barcelona captain, who side-foots just inside the far post to put them two goals ahead again.
The goal was Lionel Messi’s 64th goal in 65 UEFA Champions League Group stage games.
Four minutes later Tottenham was back in the game as Lamela reduce the deficit back to one goal. Kane wins the ball back from Alba, finds Son and then Lamela, who bends goalwards from the edge of the box and a deflection off Lenglent takes it beyond ter Stegen.
Lionel Messi put the game to bed for Barcelona in the 90th Minute to make it 4-2. Lloris’ short clearance to Trippier is half cleared by the Tottenham defender, but picked up by Alba and played down the line. It’s passed inside to Suarez on the edge of the area and he dummies it, allowing a lurking Messi a clear run when it reaches him. One-on-one with Lloris, he makes no mistake to win the game.
After the game The number 10 had this to say about the game and how important the UEFA Champions is for his club and all other European top clubs.
"The Champions League is the icing on the cake for everyone," he said after the game.
"But to get to that stage you have to be good in the league and the cup, you have to perform well in the league to perform well in the Champions League.
"We will put no competition to the side, the Champions League is special but we will fight for the league and the cup."
Messi was unsurprisingly pleased with the win, particularly after Barcelona's poor recent run."We were aware that there were doubts because of our results," he added.
"It's never easy to be an away team in the Champions League and even less so against a team like Tottenham.
"We played a great match and in the first half we were extraordinary so we are happy because everything went as we wanted it to."

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