Courtois ‘too late' in closing his legs to Messi

Before the game started, there was a tifo – a sort of choregraphy with the giant letters imprinted with the words ‘God save the King’. On closer look one could find the Barcelona emblem on the middle of the sentence and Lionel Messi’s image in the middle. He is their king. The one true king of the Camp Nou and on a night where Barcelona needed inspiration to overcome a historically difficult opponent, Lionel Messi rose above the rest.

Messi was mesmerizing from the start and he scored within the third minute of play, starting a one two with Ousmane Dembele before a deflected ball fell to Luis Suarez and the Uruguayan played a cheeky flick onto Messi’s path -- as if there was no intervention in the move and Messi had just gotten the return pass from Dembele alone, and then the Argentine finished with an inexplicable nutmeg finish through Thibaut Courtois’s legs. Messi would go onto score his second goal with another nutmeg shot past the goalkeeper -- a trick shot of unfathomable genius to reach his 100th Champions League goal. 

Chelsea's Belgian goalkeeper admitted he made mistakes but said he must take that on the chin. Indeed it is not the worst thing in the world to be at the receiving end of Messi's magic. After all plenty of players in the last decade have been late to close their legs to Messi.

"(For) the first goal I didn't expect Lionel Messi to shoot from that angle and I was too late in closing my legs. It was a mistake on my part," said Courtois.

"It's annoying but I don't think I have to hide inside. I have to come out and be a man and show you made a mistake and move on."

Chelsea coach Antonio Conte was in awe of the Argentine and he could not help but compliment Messi as the duo met after the final whistle. Conte had put an arm around the Argentine as if to feel the genius of the man himself and also because he knew that the Barca number 10 had been the deciding factor in the match. When you come up against a worthy opponent -- the best performers compliment without guilt and last night Conte opened up.

Apparently, Conte had said to Messi: “You won this tie for Barcelona, many congratulations.”

“I have to praise the commitment of my players and be proud because they gave everything. But Messi made the difference and, when you have the opportunity to make a great compliment to Messi, it’s right to praise a super, super, super top player. A player who is able to score 60 goals in every season. Not only for one season. We are talking about an extraordinary player, the best in the world,” Conte replied when asked what he had told Messi.  

“He’s a player who can change the final result for any team he is playing in. But he started to play with Barcelona and, for sure, he will finish his career in Barcelona. Many teams can hope to have him in their team, but it won’t be possible. This is a great story for Barcelona and Messi. This type of player is born once every 50 years. We are talking about one single player with this capacity, with this ability, with these skills. He’s fantastic.”

Conte suggested that the result was unfair on his team and who could blame him?

We have no regrets," said Conte. "If you watch the game, you can see the final result is unfair.

"We conceded a goal, our start was terrible. We hit the post four times, this is very strange.

"I must be honest, I have to be very proud about my players, we have to continue together this way, with this will to fight, this desire to fight together," he concluded.