Argentine star Lionel Messi led his team, Barcelona, to a 3-1 victory over Napoli in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League, to set a date next Friday with Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the tournament.
Barcelona entered the match and had the advantage of a 1-1 draw at the Napoli stadium, which prompted Napoli to an enthusiastic start and control that lasted for minutes over the course of the game at the Camp Nou, but Messi quickly became active and Barcelona owns the game.
In the tenth minute, Barcelona translated control with an early goal scored by French defender Clemont Linglet from a corner kick that turned his head into the net of the Napoli goal, but the video assistant referee (Var) delayed the goal announcement due to the suspicion that there was a push for the defender just before the goal.
And Messi quickly strengthened Barcelona's progress by scoring the second goal in the 23rd minute, with individual effort and high skill, amid a guard from Napoli's defenders who could not stop his danger, to raise his score in the European Championships to 115 goals, and then the Italian team surrendered.
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With great skill, Messi scores the second goal for Barcelona 🥅⚽️ # beINUCL #UCL pic.twitter.com/XOj858UCSF
- beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS) August 8, 2020
With great skill, Messi also scored the third goal in the 32nd minute, but the mouse canceled it because the ball rebounded from his chest and touched his hand before scoring the goal, and although it was not intentional, it canceled the goal based on the amendment to the Football Law last year to count any ball that touches the striker's hand that results in A goal or opportunity A goal regardless of whether or not intentional.
Messi suffered an injury as a result of his interference with Senegalese defender Coulibaly, and after the match was stopped for minutes to treat Messi, Turkish international referee Konet Shakir reviewed the mouse screen and awarded a penalty kick in the first minute of stoppage time, from which Luis Suarez scored Barcelona's third goal.
Only 4 minutes passed until the referee awarded another penalty kick for Napoli, from which Lorenzo Insigne scored the goal of reducing the score for Napoli, to end the first half with Barcelona advancing 3-1.
The goal gave a boost to Napoli, who entered the second half with great enthusiasm and tried to score again in several failed attacks, and even the only attack that succeeded in shaking the net of Barcelona in the 80th minute was canceled by the referee for offside.
Because of the lack of time after the tournament was suspended for 5 months as a result of the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, the European Union of Football Associations (UEFA) took a decision to hold the quarter-final matches from 12 to 23 of this month in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, without an audience also with a one-off match system.