Luis Suarez who looked hungry and eager
to impress from kick-off scored all of Barcelona’s three goals in
their 3-0 win over Guangzhou Evergrande, which set up a Europe v South
America showdown with River Plate in Sunday’s final. Even without two thirds of ‘MSN’, with Neymar not fit enough to start and left on the bench, the UEFA Champions League winners were rarely troubled by their counterparts from Asia.
In the opening
exchanges, Guangzhou goalkeeper Li Shuai looked to have carried the
excellent form he showed against Club America into this semi-final
encounter. Two excellent balls from Andres Iniesta were on their way to
Munir El Haddadi and Dani Alves respectively as the Spanish side
threatened, but the 33-year-old was off his line smartly on both
occasions to avert the danger. Barcelona came close to scoring just after the half hour mark when another excellent ball from Iniesta was headed just wide by El Haddadi.
The game suffered an unfortunate incident a minute later when Zheng Zou fell awkwardly following an aerial duel with Dani Alves and had to be stretchered off after suffering what appeared to be a nasty injury.
Barcelona took the lead in the 39th minute when Li Shuai could only parry Ivan Rakitic’s powerful strike from distance into the path of Suarez, who was on hand to poke home the rebound.
Rather than be deterred by the goal, Guangzhou were spurred into action and caused Barcelona a few headaches due to the excellent delivery of their crosses from Long Zheng. They almost found an equaliser before the break from his free-kick when Elkeson’s flick header forced Claudio Bravo into a scrambling save low to his right.
Suarez got his and Barça’s
second of the evening five minutes after the restart. It was Iniesta
who supplied the assist, putting through a sublime through-ball which
the former Liverpool forward chested down before producing a fine
finish. After providing the ammunition for Suarez, Iniesta tried a speculative shot from distance which whistled just over the bar as Barcelona began to stroll.
Suarez completed his hat-trick from the spot in the 67th minute after El Haddadi had been fouled in the box by Huang Bowen. Li Shuai dived the right way, but the Uruguayan’s penalty had too much power and precision for him to stop.
As the
game petered out Suarez went close twice more as two left-footed shots
were curled narrowly wide. The desire for goals from Barcelona’s No9 and
the support shown by the Guangzhou Evergrande fans did not diminish
during the course of the match. The fans of the AFC Champions League winners will be back in three days’ time for the third place, which will be an all-Asian encounter against Japan's Sanfrecce Hiroshima.
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