The Europa League saw a very interesting knockout stage in play this week as German giants and Eerling Haaland’s club, Borussia Dortmund lost out to the Scottish Rangers on an aggregate score of 6-4.
Spanish sides like Sevilla and Real Betiz also made it to the Round of 16 beating their respective opponents by a goal.
However the headlines only saw one team’s name. FC Barcelona, and more importantly, Xavi’s FC Barcelona. La Blaugrana dominated Napoli in the Diego Maradona Stadium in Italy. The sheer pace and aggressive attacks by Barcelona were just too much for Napoli to handle.
As Napoli exited the tournament, Insigne also exited Europe as he heads over to the MLS in America to play for Toronto next season.
Getting an early goal at just 8 minutes, Barcelona legend Jordi Alba started the proceedings for the visitors. The dominance continued with Frankie de Jong getting the second goal just 5 minutes later. With the likes of Traore and Pedri playing massive roles in getting the ball forward, Barcelona looked unbeatable. Alas, in a rare mistake and challenge by Ter Stegen, Insigne received a penalty kick which he completely capitalized on and brought back hope to the Italian fans.
That hope however didn’t last long as Barcelona kept attempting and had a huge 8 shots on goal by just the 20th minute of the game. The fast paced game saw a massive goal by another player draped in Barcelona legend, Gerard Pique.
With Barcelona up 3-1 in the match and 4-2 on aggregate by half time, all they had to do was keep up the pace. Pierre Emerick had a hard time in the first half as missed opportunity after opportunity, but in the second half, he finally opened his European goal scoring tally for Barcelona as he drilled one in the Napoli net.
Napoli did manage to get another goal back, however it was too late and Barcelona were just too good. Now Barcelona await the draw to see which one of the seeded teams they will face out of Leverkusen, Monaco, West Ham, Moskva, Frankfurt, Zvezda, Galatasaray or Lyon.