Barcelona's Lionel Messi in action with Bayern Munich's Bastian Schweinsteiger and Xabi Alonso
The former coach of the Catalan giants described his former star as 'unstoppable' in his pre-match press conference and it proved to be the case as Messi was the difference on an exhilarating night of football.
The Argentina forward took centre stage 13 minutes from time with a wonderful low shot into the bottom corner before eclipsing that strike with a slaloming run and dink over Manuel Neuer just moments later.
Neymar then raced through deep into injury time to coolly fire home and give the Spanish outfit a huge cushion to take to Munich next Tuesday.
The pre-match focus was inevitably on Guardiola's return 'home' but it wasn't long before all the attention switched to the bizarre system the ex-Barcelona coach was deploying to try to nullify the threat of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar.
The
decision to go three on three against the finest forward line on the
planet simply didn't work and only some outstanding goalkeeping from
Manuel Neuer and some desperate last-ditch defending denied Suarez and
co the opener. The former Liverpool striker had at least two clear-cut openings while Neuer was again at his imperious best to keep out Dani Alves' stabbed attempt.
At the other end Robert Lewandowski
was donning a mask to protect a nasty facial injury and he would have
been grateful for it to hide his blushes when he completely miscued
eight yards out after some clever play on the right from Thomas Mueller.
Bayern
improved following the break but it was still Barcelona who had the
better openings with Neymar crashing a shot over the top after creating
space inside the area from Ivan Rakitic's pass.
The
visitors didn't have a shot on target until Thiago's tame deflected
shot in the 71st minute and they were eventually undone soon after as
Messi showed just why he is regarded as one the greatest players of
all-time.
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