Barcelona exact sweet revenge for last season’s loss to Italian club
Barcelona: Barcelona defied an outgoing off-field crisis as another Lionel Messi-inspired display exacted sweet revenge on Juventus to open their Champions League campaign with a resounding 3-0 win here Tuesday.
Messi was involved in all three goals as he beat Gianluigi Buffon for the first time in his career to open the floodgates just before half time. Ivan Rakitic added a second after Messi’s run and cross opened up the Juventus defence before the Argentine rounded off the scoring by drilling home his second of the evening 19 minutes from time.
Victory puts Barca on top of Group D alongside Sporting Lisbon, who were 3-2 winners at Olympiakos.
Barca’s start to the season has been dominated by calls for president Josep Maria Bartomeu to resign following Neymar’s world record move to Paris Saint-Germain. However, Barca proved as long as they have Messi there is life after Neymar.
However, it was Juventus who started well with Marc-Andre ter Stegen forced into three early saves to deny Mattia de Sciglio, Paulo Dybala and Miralem Pjanic.
Barca’s new recruit Osumane Dembele was showing plenty of promise, but often tried to beat one man too many in his quest to impress as the hosts struggled to create chances early on.
Their best effort before opening the scoring came when a Messi free-kick rebounded back into Luis Suarez’s path and his fierce effort was turned over by Buffon.
However, Dembele provided the inch-perfect pass to Messi just a minute before half time and the Argentine scored with a low shot to the right of Buffon.
Juventus had a big chance to respond right at the start of the second half, but Dybala couldn’t match his international teammate’s finish and he lifted his shot over the bar.
Messi was inches away from his second as another rasping left-foot drive came back off the inside of the post, rebounded off the back of Buffon’s head and dropped just wide. Then a few minutes later, the Argentine brought out the best in Buffon with another stiff shot which the custodian parried away.
However, the veteran goalkeeper was helpless once more when on the 71st minute Messi cut inside onto his left foot and buried the ball into the bottom corner for his eighth goal of the season already.
Major results
Bayern Munich 3 Anderlecht 0
Sporting Lisbon 3 Olympiakos 2
CSKA Moscow 2 Benfica 1
Atletico Madrid 0 Roma 0