Football: Messi ends Milan dream
The headline will be Barcelona's 4-0 annihilation of AC Milan, swatting aside the critics and doubters in the only way that this great team know how.
Had the ball deflected off the post and spun the other way, the chilling inquest into Barcelona's fall of grace would have already begun.
The biggest of games, the smallest of margins.
Trailing 2-0 from the first leg, Barca was in a supposed crisis, its crown as Europe's dominant force precariously balanced.
Consecutive defeats to arch rival Real Madrid in domestic competition and the anemic display at San Siro just three weeks ago had stoked the fires.
But on this occasion, it was not just at the Vatican where black smoke rose across Italian skies, but also in Milan, as its Champions League dream went up in flames.
It could have been a different story -- but history is written by the victors and Barcelona were victorious by a considerable distance.
Without coach Tito Vilanova, who is still undergoing cancer treatment, question marks had emerged about the ability of the club to make it through to its sixth consecutive quarterfinal.
And perhaps, but for a post and a roll of the ball, those questions would have been answered quite differently.
Maybe the opportunity fell to the wrong man. At just 18, M'Baye Niang cut an unlikely cast member for the role of hero.
Without a goal to his name since his move to Milan at the end of last season, it was he who was given the golden opportunity to bring Barca to its knees with just seven minutes of the opening period remaining.
Already trailing to Lionel Messi's fifth minute strike, Niang took advantage of an error by Javier Mascherano before gliding towards goal.
This was the moment that Milan had waited for and while Niang hit his effort hard and true, it crashed against the post and away to safety, CNN informs.
An away goal then would have given even Barcelona a mountain to climb with a minimum of four goals needed to progress.
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