Barcelona’s Champions League campaign has come to an end in the round of 16 for the first time since 2007 as a top performance from Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper Keylor Navas forced Barcelona to settle for a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their tie on Wednesday night in at the Parc des Princes.
The result earned PSG a 5-2 win on aggregate, but Barcelona can take solace from a very good performance in which they were superior against the Ligue 1 side, and if not for the heroics of the former Real Madrid man in the Parisian goal it could have been a different story. The Costa Rican deflected two Barcelona shots onto the crossbar, including a Lionel Messi penalty after the Argentine had scored a spectacular goal from distance.
Ronald Koeman pulled no punches in rolling out an attack-heavy front three, with Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele joining Messi up top.
The visiting Catalans started off well with a series of chances, including an Oscar Mingueza header that deflected wide and a pair of Dembele chances, the latter of which forced Keylor into a diving save.
Sergino Dest then got in on the act and fired a shot that Keylor managed to deflect onto the crossbar and out. Moments later Messi just missed connecting on a Dembele cross by inches with the goal wide open for the Argentine.
PSG weren’t causing much trouble going forward, but the hosts caught a break just shy of the half-hour mark when Clement Lenglet stepped on the heel of Mauro Icardi in the area and Kylian Mbappe hammered home the spot kick for a 1-0 PSG lead.
With Mingueza sitting on a yellow card and marking Mbappe, Koeman went to his bench early, swapping off the La Masia product for Junior Firpo.
Messi had apparently seen enough of Dembele and Griezmann either shooting right at Keylor or completely missing the mark, so the Argentine took matters into his own hands and promptly delivered the goal of the night with a swerving left-footed rocket that slammed into the top left corner of net to make it 1-1.
Things started to get a bit more interesting just seconds before half-time when Layvin Kurzawa fouled Griezmann just inside the area, resulting in a penalty, but Messi’s effort was blocked onto the crossbar and out by Keylor, spoiling a gilt-edged opportunity for Barcelona to make serious inroads.
Barcelona continued to poke and prod to try to get back into it and Messi was presented with another chance after a nicely weighted pass from Jordi Alba, but the PSG defence never allowed La Pulga to shoot.
The next substitution made by Koeman was Trincao for Dest with Barcelona remaining on the front foot and keeping Keylor on his toes, with the Costa Rican stopper having to make a reaction save on a Sergio Busquets header.
The last roll of the dice from Koeman came with Ilaix Moriba, Miralem Pjanic and Martin Braithwaite for Pedri, Busquets and Dembele, but in the end there was no getting past Keylor the rest of the way, as PSG closed things out to send Barcelona packing.
