Barcelona set the gold standard in Champions League win over Juventus | ESPN
Juventus had planned for Messi. The problem is that, sometimes, there is no game plan when the Big Bad Wolf is at the door and you live in a straw house. Or, in this case, even if you live in a reinforced concrete bunker and Messi, Neymar and Suarez come knocking.
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Just when the rolling tide was black and white, when it was Juventus’s players imploring their fans to raise the volume, as if they even needed asking, when the nerves were Barcelona’s and the tension was rising, just moments after Leo Messi appeared to be struggling, the stride slow and the brow heavy, he was up and running again. Others ran with him. There was space now, for almost the first time, and off Messi went, heading at the defence. He shifted inside and took aim. Gigi Buffon dived to his left and pushed the shot away. And there was Luis Suárez.
Barcelona, as Gerard Pique put it on the eve of the final, have reached “perfection.” Perhaps the greatest attacking trio the game has ever seen — Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar — have appropriately won the treble, but that was not all that was fitting about this 3-1 win over Juventus.
Why the Rakitić-Alves-Messi trio is the engine of Lucho’s Barça | TotalBarca
Some of my friends and colleagues outside the blaugrana sphere don’t appreciate what Alves brings to the club, saying he gets caught out of position too often, does not know how to defend, and should play as a a winger. How ignorant. I fully agree that he isn’t the beast he was at the time of Barça’s last Champions League win, but he is far from an incompetent defender. The Barça system requires Alves to bomb forward and help out in attack and then track back and defend as well.
Luis Enrique casts Barcelona future into doubt after win over Juventus | Guardian
“This has been spectacular,” Luis Enrique said after his team’s 3-1 victory. “Juventus caused us a lot of trouble but we have written history again for Barcelona. This is one of the best seasons of this great club. The statistics prove that and we will have a great celebration. It’s been a difficult year – a year of transition. I have to thank the people who trusted me. Those decisions will be made later though.”
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