Lovely bit of writing from one Barney Ronay in the grauniad:
"It did not take long for Messi’s first law of physics to assert itself. This is the law that says Messi can basically make it up as he goes along. With 90 seconds gone that familiar hunched figure picked the ball up in the centre circle and spun around, the Messi sonar already picking out the location and trajectory of every object within his range.
At that moment the pass out to Jordi Alba did not really exist. There were bodies in the way. The line of sight was blocked. The pass was an idea, something scribbled on a Post-It note, talks about talks.
Messi did it anyway, hitting the ball with just enough fade to glide through the narrow target area between Philippe Coutinho and Kieran Trippier as they ran back. Trippier was almost turned inside out, wrenching his neck round, corkscrewing himself into the turf. Hugo Lloris saw it too late, rushing out in a panic, arms waggling at his sides, like a man chasing chickens across a motorway intersection. The weight of the pass was perfect, offering Alba a half-volley inside to Coutinho, whose finish was spanked through the covering bodies. With two minutes gone a single Messi pass had left the white shirts writhing about in their own area like the dregs from the last night-bus home."
