Philippe Coutinho wheels away after opening up the scoring at Wembley (photo credit: Tom Jenkins/Guardian)
Barca beat Spurs 4-2 on a night of great goals
By Steve Clare
Barcelona showed why they are the game’s star attraction in London tonight after a 4-2 win over a fighting Tottenham side. Lionel Messi scored twice, hit the post twice and conducted the Catalan orchestra on a beautiful autumn night in front of a packed house.
The scoring frenzy started early. Inside two minutes, an amazing through ball by Messi found Jordi Alba. Hugo Lloris ran out to shut him down and Alba squared it backwards without looking to Philippe Coutinho who scored. A fantastic team goal.
Spurs battled back and on 25, Kane perhaps took one too may touches before having a go an effort which petered out but which capped a good 20 minutes for the home side.
Three minutes later, Barca doubled their lead and it was a bizarre goal. A miskick and a rescue by Coutinho as the ball seemed about to spin out fell to the feet of the Croatian Ivan Rakitic who gave Hugo Lloris little chance.
Kane’s brightest moment came soon after when he burst through and fed Lucas Moura whose cross was deflected by Gerard Pique, a deflection which tested keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen who excellently got a hand to it and collected.
Messi continued to dazzle. He danced through the entire Tottenham defence with the runs of Suarez and Coutinho mere picture frames. But he hit the post. As if to show he’d done that deliberately in a bizarre crossbar challenge, he repeated the circus trick almost identically three minutes later. The knock on Lloris’ door was getting louder.
So it was some surprise when Spurs scored the next goal. Seven minutes into the second half, Kane received the ball out left from Erik Lamela, He cut in, he curled, and he scored, adding another great goal to the night.
That barely lasted. On 56, a Jordi Alba cut back was well dummied by Suarez and Messi hit the net this time. Still, Mauricio Pochettino’s men fought back, a Lamela shot took enough of a deflection off Clement Lenglet to perplex ter Stegen to haul it back to 2-3 in a flurry of scoring which saw three goals in 14 minutes.
Lenglet saved Barca when he deflected a Lucas Moura shot wide, being a little luckier with his intervention than before.
The scoring was completed towards the end when Messi capiatllised on a loose and tired pass out which Alba collected and fed to the Argentinian to make it 2-4.
