Superstar Neymar scores en route to helping Barcelona knock off Juventus in this year’s UEFA Champions League Final.
By Connor Orchard
This was the game that would see European soccer bid farewell to a legend.
Xavi, the man who before this game took place, won an incredible 24 trophies with Barcelona in his 17 year career at the club. Those trophies include eight league titles, six Spanish Supercups, two UEFA Super Cups, three Copa del Reys, two World Cups and finally three Champions Leagues, which he would increase to four tonight as his team defeated Juventus 3-1.
CHAMPIONS! #UCLfinal pic.twitter.com/MKEx214HPT
— Purely Football (@PurelyFootball) June 6, 2015
First Half:
The game got off to a really quick start, as Juventus looked to pile the pressure on Barcelona early, and it definitely looked like Barcelona was feeling shaky. However, after some nice passing play by Neymar and Iniesta, Rakitic was there to slot in the first goal of the game, which would see Barcelona take the lead at just 03:24 into the game.
Another chance came early for Barcelona, and not too long after their first goal they were robbed of a second goal by a fantastic save from Gianluigi Buffon at 12:50.
The goalkeeper was diving the opposite direction to the shot and stuck out his left arm in a last ditch effort to save the goal, and he did.
Juventus was close to getting one back when Paul Pogba crossed a ball in towards Carlos Tevez. All he would of had to do was get a foot on the end of a it and the ball would of surely found the back of the net, but Javier Mascherano was there to stick out a leg and block the cross before it got to him.
Second Half:
Barcelona was close to extending their lead early on in the second half.
They found their former, and regular, self in a counter-attack. Suarez had the shot and another great save was made by Buffon at his near post to deny another goal.
Juventus responded well though, and at 54:18 into the match, Alvaro Morata got the equalizer for Juventus to tie the score at 1 – 1. The goal came from a brilliant backheel by Claduio Marchisio who set his team up for a shot which came from Carlos Tevez, and Alvaro Morata was there to get his team right back in the game.
Just moments after a controversial non-penalty call that was given against Juventus, Barcelona extended their lead 2-1 with a goal from Luis Suarez. The 28-year old Uruguayan was there to score a goal from a rebound which originally came from a Lionel Messi shot, who tried to hammer a side footer into the bottom right hand corner just from the edge of the box.
But that wasn’t all.
In the last minute of the game, Neymar extended Barcelona’s lead to 3-1 to confirm Barcelona their fifth Champions League trophy. Neymar also became the joint leading goal scorer in the Champions League with that goal, along with teammate Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
That’s all she wrote.
Barcelona wins their fifth Champions League trophy and Xavi gets his fourth in his last game for the club. The goal from Morata wasn’t enough to win Juventus the trophy in the end and Andrea Pirlo did not win the trophy with what could have been his last game for Juventus also.
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