Messi Brace Keys Barça's Blasting Man Utd outta the Champions League Bracket

After their first-leg blanking of Manchester United at Old Trafford, a simple draw was all Barcelona needed in the second leg to advance to the Champions League semi-finals.

The Red Devils couldn't come up with a single goal in this one, either, as Lionel Messi's magic wrapped up a 3-0 triumph for Barça.

Frankly, the Blaugrana took United to the woodshed in these two games, offering a painful assessment of the gap between Ole Gunnar Solsjaer's squad and Europe's elites.

 

The Red Devils opened at a similar pace to when they knocked out PSG with offensive, high-pressing football. This almost resulted in an early lead, as Marcus Rashford drove hard into the area but could only smack Marc André Ter Stegen's crossbar. 

However, Barça gradually blunted that attack and gradually took control of the match. You could see it coming even though the Catalans had a penalty denied by the VAR after Fred fouled Ivan Rakitić inside the area.

 

Furthermore, within 16 minutes, Messi began his personal show.

Dude got the ball down the right wing, cut, and fired a low effort into David de Gea's bottom corner:

 

This was Messi's first goal at this stage in the European competition since 2013.

One quickly became two in a matter of four minutes.

Messi got the ball in a similar position and unloaded from the edge of the box. At first, it seemed to be a routone save for de Gea, but the shot had enough mustard on it to scoot under the Spanish 'keeper:

 

Barça's third came a quarter-hour after the break.

Brazilian Philippe Coutinho curled an unstoppable rocket into the top corner from distance. No chance for de Gea:

 

As Barcelona goes marching into the semi-finals, Manchester United is left with questions.

However Solsjaer goes about reshaping the side, nothing's gonna happen as quickly as the Red Devil fan base will demand. There are simply too many issues to address if they're to regain a reputation as a big brand in fact as opposed to traditions.

Look for a busy off-season, then, at Old Trafford. And while the club can afford virtually any player, it can't afford any mistakes in its personnel decisions if any sorta dynamic rebound is gonna happen.