MESSI to Suarez to Neymar.
The holy trinity of world football will strut their stuff in the Champions League final in Berlin next month after they combined on two separate occasions to move this semi-final tie beyond a game Bayern Munich side. While the Bavarians and their Catalan head coach Pep Guardiola won back some badly-needed pride with victory on the night, it would have been somehow sacrilegious if this most vaunted of forward lines - an Alfredo di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and Francisco Gento for our times - had not been allowed to contest the showpiece occasion of the European game. The match on June 6 will be only the eighth European Cup or Champions League final in the club's history and they will find out shortly whether the German capital will play host to an El Clasico for the ages.
For all the Catalan celebrations, there was no mistaking that this was a moral victory for the Germans. In fact Barcelona were particularly thankful for the agency of one particular German, Marc-Andre Ter Stegen, who was the busier of the two goalkeepers. While it was sobering to think that Bayern had crushed their opponents 7-0 only two seasons back, the entire Pep project was on the line going into this one. Going into this second leg 3-0 in arrears, the German public feared the worst, but they left the field to cheers after a brave effort which for a while had them believing the miracle could happen.
Bayern dared to dream when Mehdi Benatia powered home a seventh minute header which caught out ter Stegen but a quick double from Neymar - both provided with a little help from his friends - effectively sunk their hopes of an astonishing comeback. First Lionel Messi brilliantly cut open the German rearguard to feed Luis Suarez, who unselfishly crossed for Neymar to prod home the equaliser on the night, then Messi's header sent Suarez away down the right, the Uruguayan's cross finding Neymar in plenty of space to knock home the visitors' second.
Guardiola went down attacking, keeping ter Stegen at the centre of attention on the night. He was called into action early, to defy both Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller, before the Polish striker turned smartly on the edge of the box around the hour mark to drill in a superb low shot past Ter Stegen to draw level on the night.
When the third goal went in, in the 74th minute, Muller steering home after Schweinsteiger played a neat lay-off with his back to goal, Bayern had a lead on the night which they never relinquished and just perhaps their visitors were starting to panic.
The miracle, however, was not to be. And instead it was Barca who might well have rounded things off. Neymar was sent into space in the left side of the box and instead of going for his hat-trick he unselfishly tried to find Messi, only for his attempted pass to evade the Argentinian and roll harmlessly across the face of an empty goal. It was a rare moment of disconnect between these three world class talents.
In truth the damage had been done at the Camp Nou a week earlier. "We believed in the miracle but we just couldn't make it happen," said Lahm afterwards. "It's impossible to stop those players for the whole 90 minutes. We didn't lose it today, but in the first leg."
"It was a very hard game for us," said Ivan Rakitic. "But after the first game everything was a little bit easier."
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