By Tatenda Choto
After a 2-0 lose against Malaga in the La Liga, the Catalans fail victim to yet another defeat in the UEFA Champions league Quarter final against the Italian finest, Juventus. The atmosphere on Tuesday night in Turin did not favour the Spanish power horse, Barcelona who considered 2 goals in the first and one in the second half in an intriguing encounter.
Juventus began the match with a quick attack from Guillemo Cuadrado who brought an inviting cross to find the head of Huguain who directed it straight to the Barcelona goalie Stegen with only 2 minutes of play.
In 7th minute the speedy Cuadrado continued to show skill and composer to unsettle the Barcelona defence to set Paulo Dybala who dramatically curled the ball towards the goal to beat Stegen for an opener.
Barcelona got the chance to equalize the tally after Andrea Iniesta was set ablaze by a wonder through pass from Lionel Messi but Guinluigi Buffon was well positioned to deny a first half draw.
Iniesta’s miss was well translated for a second goal after Mario Mandzukic ran down the line for a draw in which found the boot of the 23 year old Dybala who once again provided a curl into the right bottom corner beyond Stegen’s reach.
Messi was denied a goal after the argentine robbed the ball from Sami Khadira to play a one two with Suarez and placed the ball into the bottom corner but the goal was correctly ruled out for an off side as the Uruguay was ahead of play.
The second half begun with the possessional Barcelona playing with Messi and Iniesta closer but could not engineer any productive end to reduce the deficit. Gonzalo Huguain failed to find the back of the net but was denied to earn a corner. Italian international Chiellini nodded home after in the 55th minute managing to wrestle away from Javier Mascherano to put the tally at 3.
Juventus managed to maintain the score line at 3 with a solid combination from the back 4 also featuring former Barcelona defender Daniel Alves, Bunucci, Chiellini and the instrumental Alex Sandro.
Barcelona now has an uphill task to turn the three goal deficit into another drama to come. The Spanish Champions wrote another piece of history after paralysing Paris St German’s Champions league aspirations inspired by 4-0 win in Paris which turned into a horror crush as Barcelona miraculously came back to become 6-1 victors at Nou Camp.
