Barcelona beat Napoli 3-1 in the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 and extended their unbeaten streak at home to 36 games. In the next round, Setien's wards will face a serious test in the face of Bayern players.
In the first leg Barcelona drew sensationally with Napoli and allowed their opponents to dream of a sensation. Yes, thanks to a goal on a foreign field, Kike Setien's wards had a slight advantage, but the position of the Neapolitans could hardly be called hopeless. Earlier, Lyon have already demonstrated that there is a place for unexpected results in the current Champions League, which set the squad of Gennaro Gattuso in a major mood.
In addition, the guests were helped by the absence of a number of Blaugrana middle line leaders. Due to disqualification, Sergio Busquets and Arturo Vidal missed the return leg, and Arthur was also not included in the application. Earlier, the Brazilian refused to resume the training process after the vacation and insisted on breaking the agreement due to the bad attitude from the club. Apparently, by this he meant Barcelona's decision to use him as part of the deal to acquire Miralem Pjanic.
Subsequently, Artur still returned to Spain and, according to Marca, passed a negative coronavirus test, but did not receive permission from Barcelona to visit the Camp Nou. At the same time, surrounded by the player, they assured that he intends to be present in the arena and personally observe the performance of the team.
In addition, Ousmane Dembele did not play. The Frenchman recently recovered from injury and returned to the general group, but did not even make it to the reserve. As a result, seven representatives of the blue garnet reserve team were on the bench.
“Napoli” did without losses among the leaders and appeared on the field not only in the strongest squad, but also in excellent mood. Unlike their opponents, the Neapolitans did not remain without titles at the national level and won the Italian Cup. Thus, Gattuso opened the scoring for trophies as a coach. At the same time, the Azzurri could have even more reasons for optimism if UEFA agreed to postpone the return match from Catalonia. Due to the difficult epidemiological situation in the region, the possibility of holding the game in another stadium was seriously considered, but in the end the Union did not take away the advantage of its field from Barcelona.
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Publication from FC Barcelona (@fcbarcelona) 8 Aug 2020 at 2:00 PDT
Nevertheless, in the first minutes the guests looked pretty impressive. Already at the beginning of the meeting, Dries Mertens had an excellent chance to score the second goal in the confrontation with the Catalans, but could not use it. The Belgian received a pass in the penalty area and shot from the air, but hit the post. The hosts answered after nine minutes. Clement Langle was the quickest in the corner and scored Barcelona's 600th Champions League goal. During the struggle, the Frenchman pushed Diego Demme rather hard, but the video assistants did not notice the violation of the rules. For the fifth number, this goal was the second in the tournament. Prior to that, he scored only against Spartak Moscow during his performance for Sevilla
The Neapolitans tried to regain control of the game, and even the central defender Kalida Coulibaly supported the attacks of their partners, but they did not succeed in seriously disturbing Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. But Messi demonstrated his skill level. The Argentine made a solo breakthrough into the opponent's penalty area, retained control of the ball and shot into the far corner in the fall. Even David Ospina's desperate jump did not save the guests from the second conceded goal. Thus, Messi has hit the gates of 35 teams in the Champions League - more than anyone else.
Over the last third of the half, Lionel has strengthened as the main character of the meeting. At first, he almost scored a double, but the video assistants determined the game with a hand from the Argentine. But before the break he still helped Barcelona to make the score big. Messi took advantage of Coulibaly's slowness and forced him to break the rules in the penalty area. After a long discussion, Cuneyt Chakyr nevertheless pointed to the "point", and Luis Suarez scored for the first time from a penalty spot in the Champions League. But already in stoppage time, the Turks assigned a penalty to the hosts' goal for a similar foul on Mertens. Lorenzo Insigne also did not blunder.
In the second half, Gattuso's wards, as expected, rushed forward, but the danger could be created mainly from the standards. On them, Coulibaly demonstrated his best qualities, easily pushing the less athletic Pique and Langle. Insigne was also very active and regularly sharpened the game with both solo breakthroughs and interesting programs, but found little support.
Gattuso tried to refresh the game with a series of replacements, but neither Matteo Politano nor Irving Lozano could catch the Barcelona defense by surprise. Arkadiusz Milik, who appeared on the pitch, could have arranged a hot ending, but the video assistants intervened again. The Pole broke away from the defenders and hit his head, but the VAR system fixed the offside position.