Barcelona 4 AC Milan 0; 4-2 agg: match report

Read a full match report from the Champions League last-16 second leg between Barcelona and AC Milan at the Nou Camp on Tuesday March 12, 2012, kick off 19.45 (GMT).

Messianic: David Villa celebrates with Lionel Messi after Messi gives Barcelona the lead against AC Milan Photo: GETTY 

The end of an era? What an absolute hoot. With an utterly bravura response to the preposterous idea that their footballing majesty is on the wane, Barcelona, inspired by the unreal and occasionally unplayable Lionel Messi, bewitched and bewildered poor Milan to deliver one of the great European comebacks at a quite ecstatic Nou Camp.

Of all the statements of their greatness as a team, could this have been their most emphatic in the modern era? No side had ever prevailed after being 2-0 down following the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie but, even in the absence of their seriously ill manager and, after their most stuttering spell of performances for five years, Barcelona rediscovered all their old trigonometric élan to hypnotise and then slice through Milan with all their old thrilling purpose.

What a night for the 96,000 Barcelona cules. They had been scolded by Gerard Piqué to either make thunderous noise or stay at home and they responded with a gale-force din to greet two goals from the wonderful Messi, another from the forgotten force David Villa, and a fourth from Jordi Alba in the dying seconds.

What could have been more fitting than Alba’s seal on an unforgettable night. A full-back charges all the way upfield to get on to the end a breathtaking counter-attack. That is Barcelona. No shutting up shop. Still doing it their own supreme, unique way.

And at the heart of this team representing Mes que un club is Mes que un jugador. Yes, Messi is more than a footballer; he is a force of nature

From the moment he swept ­Barcelona ahead in the fifth minute, finishing off a team goal of rare beauty, he seemed to be on a mission. He had gone missing in the San Siro; now he wanted to make delicious amends and he did, taking his tally of goals for the season to 53. Think of that. Fifty-three. And it is early March. Mad.

It was not simply that Barcelona avoided the indignity of being bundled out of the competition before the semi-final stage for the first time in six years which provided the answer to their critics; it was the fabulous, fearless way they did it, turning the clock back to fashion the sort of snap-pressing, crisp-passing ­patterns, which has seen them twice win the Champions League in the previous four seasons.

Of late, they had seemed distracted, perhaps understandably because of the illness to their manager Tito Vilanova, who is undergoing cancer treatment in New York.

Imagine what a fantastic tonic this must have been for both him, as he gambled in America on selecting Villa, a man who had scored just twice since the start of November and supposedly ever more of an ­afterthought at the Nou Camp, and watched him on TV scoring the critical third goal last night.

Afterwards, Jordi Roura, Vilanova’s beleaguered stand-in, had better news for the home fans as he revealed that the manager’s treatment for throat cancer could be finished in the next few days and that he might be fit to return in a fortnight and take charge again for the quarter-finals.

Happy days again for Barcelona then. After the two recent Clasico defeats, despite their runaway lead in La Liga, the knives had been out for their reputation. Messi reckoned he had noted how many wanted to see them knocked down a peg or two.

But, ultimately, Milan were not the men to do it. Early on, they seemed quite fazed by the job, by the atmosphere. They had their moments. If M’Baye Niang, in one of their rare first-half escapes into the Barcelona half, had taken advantage of Javier Mascherano’s error and converted the equaliser at 1-0 down as he should have done instead of hitting the post, it could have been very different, since Messi scored within a minute at the other end.

There was also the spell when, as they had to, they threw caution to the wind after Villa’s goal and pushed bodies forward. When Sulley Muntari, one of their first-leg heroes, came on and gave it a go, you could get a feel for the match that might have been.

Still, though, Barcelona’s defending, so often creaky this season as they had failed to stop the opposition scoring in all but one of their previous 14 games, stood up to the biggest examination, with Piqué and Alba both making critical last-ditch challenges in the slightly panicky last 15 minutes.

In truth, if Milan had escaped with anything here, it would have felt a travesty. Sloppy defending, as their manager Massimiliano Allegri noted, contributed to three of the goals, as if Barcelona needed any help. Of course, they did not. As Allegri sighed: “In the first 30 minutes, they were extraordinarily good.” Too true. This was a night, cheerleader in chief Piqué felt, that Barcelona “really believed” in themselves from the first minute. When the crowd formed a vast mosaic at the start announcing in Catalan “Som Un Equip!” — “We are a team!” — it set the tone.

A team, though, with one added dimension, of course. The Messi dimension.

How he delivered. Again. Within five minutes, after the most intricate of passing build-ups, Messi and Xavi, dealing in the sort of telepathy the game has rarely seen, somehow managed from Sergio Busquets’ rifled diagonal pass to contrive an extraordinary one-two on the edge of the 'D’ which ended with Messi, ­surrounded by six white shirts, curling the ball into the top corner. It was astounding.

But it got better. There was one little cameo in the second half when he wove round, the ball at his feet, defying bamboozled defenders to take it off him. They could not. He was too good.

Andrés Iniesta, who had one half-volley fantastically tipped on to the bar by Christian Abbiati, and Xavi were too good. Whether you love them or are tired of the love-in, it does not really matter. Barcelona remain simply the best.