On May 6th, 2015, Lionel Messi scored one of the greatest goals of his glittering career – and with it launched a thousand memes that Jerome Boateng will never live down.
That one moment lives long in the memory, capping off one of the most fascinating, scintillating games in Champions League history.
The first leg of the semi-final at the Camp Nou treated us to a level of football we’d seldom seen before.
We had Barcelona in arguably their most lethal form, lining up with an era-defining front three that collectively registered 122 goals and 66 assists in all competitions.
Then there were Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich. The Catalan coach was into his second season in Bavaria and had well and truly integrated his staggeringly sophisticated possession game – he might not have enjoyed European success there, but some consider the football his Bayern side produced to be the best ever seen in the Bundesliga, underlined by their mammoth numbers across three successive title-winning seasons.
Not only was it two truly great sides – surely the best in Europe at the time – but it was a fascinating tactical battle as Guardiola returned to his old ground setting up Bayern with a Bielsa-esque man-marking system that was ludicrously audacious.
“Pep Guardiola is probably the only coach in world football who would do this away at the Nou Camp. I can’t think of any other coach who would employ these tactics,” Gary Neville responded from the commentary box.
“Three v three against Messi, Neymar and Suarez! Everyone else would be thinking how do we double-up on them, protect, screen. Not him.”
Luis Enrique’s side exploited the system time and again, breaking through and creating a number of opportunities that could’ve killed the tie there and then.
“Barca’s front three must feel like kids in a sweet shop,” a perplexed Neville continued. Guardiola could see the system wasn’t working and conceded defeat after 20 minutes, switching back to a more conventional back four and binning off the man-to-man approach.
From there the game developed into a breathless, more balanced affair in which both sides attacked with abandon and spurned chances to open the scoring. It could have gone either way but – incredibly, somehow – stayed scoreless for 77 minutes.
Messi fired home the opening goal from the edge of the box after Dani Alves won the ball back deep into Bayern territory and swiftly…
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