This was not just a victory, it was an exorcism, the olés ringing round the Olympic stadium as high on Montjuïc hill Barcelona laid ghosts to rest. Bayern Munich – the ogres who had put eight past them in Lisbon, defeated them six times running with an aggregate score of 22-4, and hadn’t even conceded the last four times they met, the team that were just too good, repeatedly reminding them of their own grim reality – left here in pieces, expertly sliced apart.
Four times Barcelona cut through, Raphinha scoring a hat-trick on his 100th game and Robert Lewandowski getting another in a 4-1 win that felt like a revelation, a new life.
