Barcelona 3-Naples 1: Messi buys ticket to Lisbon

Barça bought an extra life and will be in Lisbon, where next Friday the 14th they will play the pass to the Champions League semifinals at the Estadio da Luz against Bayern Munich. The Blaugrana team was more practical than showy and knew how to suffer to defeat a Naples that made it more complicated than reflected in the final 3-1 of a match in which the Blaugrana players gave the impression that the duel was endless.

Barcelona worked while Messi was in the game. Especially in a frenzied first part that ended up being touched by a kick from Koulibaly that mediated his performance in the second half.. A second part that the Blaugrana team took forward because they knew how to suffer, renounce their style, go to practicality and get what they were looking for, which was nothing more than a ticket to Portugal that allows them to make up a sad season. Even if it was at the cost of ending up with a single striker on the field.

That in the Champions League everything is possible, and in this new format of more abnormality, it was clear in the first part in which everything happened. A regrettable staging by Barcelona, ​​a shot at the post by Napoli, a corner goal by Barça, the return of Messi, a huge goal annulled by VAR due to an alleged touch of Leo to the ball with his arm, a penalty as a Koulibaly's house to the Argentine that the referee whistled after thinking about it a lot and another from Rakitic to Mertens who did not offer any doubt to the Turkish. Those first 56 minutes with the public at Camp Nou would have been memorable. With the empty state they were entertained.

The departure of Barcelona to the field gave fuel to the thoughts of the most pessimistic culé. The team was not on the field, they were apathetic and surprised by the ambition of a Naples that felt comfortable from the beginning. Mertens gave the first warning to the minute and a half of game sending a ball to the post after a failure of Piqué. He bit him and Barça was saved from a good scare.

But the game experienced its first script twist at ten minutes. When Barça was having the worst, Lenglet rose above Demme and cleared the way for a Barça that began to fuel.

Messi scored the second in a Maradonian play in which he kept the center of gravity low to leave the defenders inside the area, even getting up from the ground after falling in the area to put the ball away from Ospina. A goal that perfectly served as a metaphor for what is expected of Barça in this final stretch of the season: fight, fall, get up and score as it is. The match and the tie seemed to close with a new goal from Messi, this time a work of art after controlling De Jong's delicious center with his chest. But the VAR has come to question everything and despite the fact that not a Neapolitan protested the execution of the goal, technology decreed that Messi, after his control, brushed the ball with his hand. One more triumph of mechanics over lyric. Goal annulled and extra life for Napoli.

Barça could accuse the blow of seeing how that 3-0 fell from the scoreboard, but Messi was in Champions mode and after stealing Koulibaly's wallet, the Senegalese central defender took a tremendous kick that Çakir only believed when in Santo Tomás plan he could see it in the VAR in great detail.

However, Naples still enjoyed a new opportunity to rejoin the game when already in discount, Rakitic made Mertens fall in the Barcelona area. The penalty was transformed by Insigne, putting Napoli within a goal of putting fear in the body of the Blaugrana team.

Clinging to that new hope, the Italian team came out ready to burn their ships in search of that goal that would get them into the game. They put their pressure on Gattuso's men, creating many problems for the Blaugrana at the start of the play. The second part began as a copy of the match, with the Italians installed near the Ter Stegen area.

Suffering and trying to defend themselves with the ball, Barça weathered the storm and Gattuso decided to play it all for everything with twenty minutes to go, giving entry to Politano and Irving Lozano. On the Barça bench, Setién still did not move the bench, hurrying the benefits of the holders, who were already beginning to see the physical seams, but on the bench there was not much choice either. And while, Setién kept thinking about it, Gattuso exhausted the five changes giving entry to Elmas and Milik, who as soon as he left he scored 3-2, but offside, for which he was annulled. The blaugrana sigh of tranquility was heard throughout the city.

With seven minutes to go to the end of the game, Monchu made his debut in the Champions League entering through Griezmann to try to settle the center of the field and avoid scares to confirm a 4-4-2 as a home, with which Barça was equipped in defense shrinking balls. But the important thing was done. Now Bayern awaits. There the suffering will be more than guaranteed.