Barcelona produced the performance of the season so far last night, over-turning a 2-0 first-leg deficit to eliminate AC Milan 4-2 on aggregate, thus progressing to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League for the sixth successive season. That alone is an achievement worth celebrating, but to book their place in the face of such adversity - and in such convincing fashion; well we're all on cloud nine. From the first whistle to the last, each and every player left it all on the field and they got their reward. Just as Dani Alves said prior to the match, we haven't lost our magic, just the hunger which was back in full-force last night.
The doubts and "weaknesses" that the past few weeks have exposed are almost certainly gone - for now. Aside from the odd lapse in concentration, the Barca defense was in exemplary form and as a result they kept their second successive clean sheet - a feat last achieved at the start of the year as the Blaugrana kept Espanyol and Cordoba at bay. In attack, Lionel Messi proved his few remaining doubters wrong with a virtuoso performance and for what feels like the first time in an age, he received plenty of support from not only David Villa and Dani Alves, but also from Pedro and second-half substitute Alexis Sanchez. Jordi Alba was back to his best after a well-deserved rest against Deportivo La Coruna and with Tito Vilanova (and possibly even Eric Abidal) set to return in the next few weeks, maybe we can dream of a trip to Wembley after all...
