Lionel Messi Leads Routing Out Of Lyon To Take Barcelona To The Last-Eight

Lionel Messi led the orchestra of a rampaging Barcelona team as they crush their French counterparts, Lyon to progress to the last-eight of the competition. Lyon would be gutted by the sound of the scoreline as it doesn’t do justice to the kind of hardwork they had put in.

Ernesto Valverde wasn’t going to take chances as he opted for a strong XI with Coutinho playing down on the left flank and Arthur Melo at the middle of the park.

Lyon seemed to have come with only one intention, sit back absorb the pressure without letting any goal through and take your chances on the break.

However, their goalie had some work to do too early as passes were knitted through and through their defence.

Speaking for Lopes in the 14th-minute had to leave his line to punch the ball off the foot of Messi only for the defence to fall prey in the 17th-minute when Luis Suarez was brought down by Jason Denayer in the box.

Messi whipped the ball in with a cheeky panenka-syled penalty as Lopes helplessly watched the ball go into his own net with a dink.

Suarez once again put the goal on a plate for Coutinho when he squared a ball for the Brazilian after dribbling past Anthony Lopes.

Lopes later went off during the first forty-five minutes after a challenge by Coutinho left him fighting concussion during the course of play.

Lyon pulled one goal back in the early minutes of the second half after a VAR review allowed the goal in and for a moment they looked like they were back in it.

They were! Not until Messi wrapped up the third, turning the backs of the defenders in two directions and finally beating the substitute keeper with a right-footed finish.

The Argentine then set up Gerard Pique at the far post for the fourth of the night and the centre-back’s seventh in all competitions this term.

And with four minutes left to play, Barcelona added further gloss to the scoreline via the boots of substitute Ousmane Dembele with LM10 turning provider.

Barcelona 5-1 Lyon it ended.

Barcelona would now progress to the quarter-finals via a 5-1 aggregate scoreline.

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