Barcelona hammered Chelsea 3-0 at Camp Nou on Wednesday in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16, to move into the quarter-finals.
Bayern Munich also qualified for the quarter-finals on Wednesday, after beating Besiktas 3-1, to amass an aggregate 8-1.
The Catalans who held Chelsea 1-1 in London two weeks ago, won 4-1 aggregate, with Lionel Messi scoring the first goal in the third minute.
In the 20th minute he opened the defence for Ousmane Dembele to score the second goal. In the 63rd minute, Messi had his second goal of the day.
Barcelona, champions in 2013/14 and quarter-finalists in the last two editions, were the last team to qualify for the next stage.
They will now wait till Friday to know their quarter-final opponents, after the draw by UEFA in Lyon, Switzerland.
Messi becomes only the second player to reach the milestone in Europe’s premier tournament, following Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 117 goals in 152 games.
By the end, the Argentinian’s scintillating breakaway in the build-up to Dembele’s first Barcelona goal had become little more than a footnote to what was another Messi masterclass.
The match capped a remarkable five days for the 30-year-old, who sat out Saturday’s La Liga win over Malaga to attend to the birth of his third child.
At the finish, Chelsea coach Antonio Conte left the field with his arm around the forward, perhaps with nothing to add but congratulations.
From: TheNation
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