Let’s be fair here: Tottenham was missing a number of key starters due to injury. But damn, Barcelona looked so much better than Spurs in the first half of their Champions League match on Wednesday at Wembley Stadium in London.
Philippe Coutinho scored an easy goal 90 seconds into the match and Ivan Rakitic hammered home a long-range volley off the post in the 28th minute as Barcelona led 2-0 at halftime.
Barcelona had failed to win each of its last three LaLiga matches since beating PSV 4-0 in the first UCL match day. But the Blaugrana came out on fire in the first half against Tottenham, which last year beat Real Madrid 3-1 in London (and Borussia Dortmund by the same scoreline).
After Coutinho’s goal (we’ll get to it), Tottenham was able to put together some decent spells of possession. But then Barcelona decided to just rip the Spurs defense apart.
The play started with Lionel Messi chipping the ball into the box for Luis Suarez, who for some reason was given way too much time and space. Suarez could have had a go at the goal himself, but unselfishly chested the ball to Coutinho, who somehow shanked his volley attempt about 10 feet into the air.
But the Brazilian was alert to his miscue and quickly sent the ball back to Rakitic, who unleashed a mighty volley.
Tottenham fans were still laughing at Coutinho when Rakitic’s goal smashed off the post, quickly silencing the home crowd.
Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris, in his return since pleading guilty to drunk driving in September, had no chance at stopping the Rakitic goal vs Tottenham.
Lloris did have a chance to do something about Barcelona’s first goal — and failed spectacularly.
About 90 seconds into the match, Messi set another goal-scoring play into motion when he played a ball out wide to Jordi Alba. For some reason, Lloris exploded out of his goal to stop Alba, despite the left back posing to immediate threat. Alba simply laid the ball off to Coutinho, who pounded the ball into the empty net.
Go home Hugo, you’re drunk. Again.
The18 Recommends For You
