Spanish Press React to Bloody Nose Given to Manchester United by Barcelona

The front page of Diario Sport, one of Catalonia's two sports newspapers, ran with a picture in Thursday's edition of a smiling Luis Suarez—the instigator of Barcelona's match-winning goal against Manchester United in their UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg—and Lionel Messi about to embrace. Above the exultant players was the headline: "A most delightful victory."

The phrase is a play on Messi's maiden public speech as Barcelona team captain. In August, the team's new signings for the season—Arthur, Clement Lenglet, Arturo Vidal, all of whom featured on Wednesday as well as Malcom—were presented at the Camp Nou.

Messi said a few words to decorate the occasion, putting his stall out for the season: to bring the UEFA Champions League trophy, this "most delightful cup," as he referred to it, back home to Barcelona after a four-year exile.  

Barcelona took a significant step towards that goal, a night after its chief rival for the competition, Manchester City, suffered a 1-0 first-leg defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.

Barca take a precious away-goal lead back to the Camp Nou for Tuesday's second leg, having managed to win for the first time in European competition at Old Trafford—at the fifth attempt, following defeats in 1984 and 2008, as well as a couple of epic draws, 2-2 and 3-3 in 1994 and 1998, respectively.

Messi was in the wars. A picture of him lying on the turf at Old Trafford was chosen by Diario Sport as its "photo of the match" inside its pages. In it, he's looking up forlornly at the referee with a bloody nose and a nick to his eye, which he picked up in the 27th minute of the match after Chris Smalling clattered into him from behind.

The consensus from the Spanish media was that it was a dull match, "grey" and uninspiring, according to Santi Gimenez, who reported on it for Diario AS. It failed to live up to the hype. Manchester United plodded through the game, failing to hit the target with their 10 goal chances, while Ramon Besa, writing for El Pais, believes Barcelona "lost ambition" after scoring in the 13th minute.

The only goal in the game was celebrated for its classical style. It was a quintessential Barcelona-type effort—"a work of art made in Barcelona." Mister Chip, a Spanish football statistician who works for Diario AS and other publications, calculated the goal was stitched together with 48 passes over a phase of play that lasted two minutes and 14 seconds.

The move involved all 11 of Barcelona's players, including goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, as well as an attempted clearance by Smalling and the final, fatal touch by Luke Shaw which resulted in an own goal. In the words of Xavi Martinez Olivar, one of the original staff members of Diario Sport, it was an "immense rondo," which is the piggy-in-the-middle training exercise that has come to be synonymous with Barca's reverence for possession-based football.

Sergio Busquets, the linchpin of Barcelona's tiki-taka style now that his old midfield team-mates Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta have left the club, provoked a mixed reaction from Spanish football commentators for his performance.

Besa, one of the great lyrical football writers in Spain, felt he was "restless," and Mundo Deportivo gave him only one star in its player ratings, the lowest of Barcelona's starting 11.

Toni Frieros lauded Busquets, however, in his post-match column for Diario Sport, citing his skill in reading the game and giving necessary balance to the team. He celebrated the Barcelona midfielder for his ability to execute "the art of playing (well) riskily," adding that he invariably plays with "an insulting simplicity." Busquets coughed up possession three times in 90 minutes of regulation play and completed 84 passes, according to Diario Sport.

Paul Pogba, one of the United players Busquets was battling with in the midfield trenches, was savaged for his poor return.

"Pogba was a reflection of United at Old Trafford," concluded O. Garcia for Marca, adding that neither the central midfielder nor his team-mates were comfortable on the ball; that they spent more time working on defence than attack; and rarely showed any flashes of their best.

Pogba started brightly—drawing a yellow card on Busquets for a rugby-style tackle as well as breaking between the lines with a killer pass for Marcus Rashford. From there, though, his influence dwindled, doing "little more" and managing to lose possession 10 times. El Mundo reckoned the FIFA World Cup winner "vanished" when the going got tough.

The Frenchman is daily the subject of Madrid's sporting press and a potential summer move to Real Madrid. Amid its reporting of the football exchanges at Old Trafford, Diario AS added a front-page story about Pogba's unrest in Manchester and a possible move from the city.

Referencing reports in Le Parisien, it claims Pogba's relationship with Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has "eroded" and notes his fluency in Spanish (his girlfriend and mother of his child is Bolivian) would help with his acclimatisation were he to move to Madrid.

Scott McTominay was one of the only United players to emerge with his reputation enhanced from the game in the eyes of Spanish onlookers. According to Mundo Deportivo, the 22-year-old was "the best" player on the English side and will mark an era at Old Trafford like predecessors such as Roy Keane and Solskjaer's assistant, Michael Carrick.

Solskjaer comes in for criticism because of his "blurry" vision, according to Mundo Deportivo. After being the catalyst for a mid-season revival, he's now staring down the barrel of "his first crisis" since succeeding Jose Mourinho as manager.

His counterpart in Barcelona's dugout, Ernesto Valverde, has been roundly applauded by analysts in Spain for his astute game management and his courage in selecting a surprisingly attack-minded team.

A couple of Valverde's decisions proved key. First, his choice of playing Nelson Semedo at full-back. The Portuguese defender helped to neutralise the attacking threat of Rashford because of his speed. Second, Valverde's double substitution midway through the second half in which he withdrew Philippe Coutinho and added an extra man into midfield, and Arthur helped to add "muscle" and dynamism to Barcelona's attack, and turned the game in the visitors' favour after they had started to look ropey in the game's middle third.

Suarez was praised by Besa for his performance. Besa mentioned the goal drought of Suarez in away ties in the UEFA Champions League as being one of football's enduring "mysteries." The Uruguayan—who is fifth on the all-time scoring charts at Barcelona after only five years at the club—hasn't scored outside the Camp Nou since he got a header against AS Roma in September 2015.

Gerard Pique, who was marking a return to Old Trafford, the club where he spent four seasons at the start of his career, received the most plaudits for his performance. He was "brutal." according to Diario Sport columnist Pichi Alonso, using a Spanish expression which means "thrilling" as opposed to its different, negative meaning in English.  

Alonso scored a famous match-winning hat-trick as a player for Barcelona in a European Cup semi-final second leg in 1986. Valverde's Barca now have one foot in this season's last four.

Wednesday night's win was seen as significant. A monkey is off their back, as the victory followed a heavy run of Champions League quarter-final defeats away from home—Barcelona having gone down to Roma (3-0), Juventus (3-0) and Atletico Madrid (2-0) in preceding seasons.

Diario AS believe it's a done deal. Their front-page headline screamed, "Cristiano and Messi on the way to final," alluding to the away goal Cristiano Ronaldo scored in Juventus' 1-1 draw at Ajax's Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam, while Messi—who played with different coloured boots in the first (yellow) and second (pink) periods of the game—was attending to business at Old Trafford.

The eternally optimistic Solskjaer, who managed to conjure an unlikely second-leg turnaround for Manchester United against Paris Saint-Germain in the last round, may well have something to say about that conclusion on Tuesday.

His side might have had their nose bloodied, but they're not entirely beaten yet.   

Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richard_Fitz