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Barcelona, Spain, March 12 (Reuters) – Barcelona reached the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time in four years with a thrilling 3-1 home victory over Napoli on Tuesday in the second leg of their last-16 tie, earning a deserved 4-2 aggregate victory.
Early goals from Fermin López and Joao Cancelo gave the hosts the lead, Amir Rahmani reduced the gap before half-time and Robert Lewandowski sealed the victory with a late third goal. .
Napoli have not beaten Barça in their previous five meetings and it was a repeat of their 2020 Champions League encounter, where the Spanish side won 3-1 at home after a 1-1 draw in Napoli.
It was the last time the Catalans won a knockout stage match in this competition, and they recently qualified for the last eight.
Barça coach Xavi Hernández told Mediaset: “I'm very happy. Barcelona deserved to be in Europe's top eight.It was a game dominated by attack and defense, but despite Napoli's great performance, “There was,” he told Mediaset.
“I'm happy with how we qualified, but we'll see how the draw goes. I'm proud to be back in the quarter-finals for the first time in a few years.”
In a highly entertaining game at the Montjuïc Stadium, Barça pressed from the start, giving Napoli little time to settle down, and the few attacks the visiting team created ended with striker Victor Osimhen being offside.
Eearly opener
The first goal was scored in 15 minutes Cancelo played in Rafinha on the left, who cut into the area and turned the ball back to Lewandowski who played it to the free Fermin, who calmly slotted a shot into the bottom left corner.
Napoli had little time to recover before Barça doubled their lead. The away team pushed forward in search of an equalizer, and Barcelona increased their pace and counterattacked.
Lamine Yamal's excellent cross-field pass saw Raphinha cut into the area and Giovanni Di Lorenzo's off-foot shot hit the far post, allowing Cancelo to score his first goal.
“I'm disappointed, because we came here aiming to win and we didn't succeed,” Napoli coach Francesco Calzona said.
“We got off to a very bad start. If you concede this many goals against this team in the long run, you're going to lose.”
Napoli opened the scoring in the 30th minute when Matteo Politano outsmarted Cancelo inside the area and passed the ball back to Rahmani, whose run from the back was rewarded with a side-footed shot past goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen. I finally found a breakthrough.
Visiting keeper Alex Meret kept Napoli level with some great saves after the break from Lewandowski and Ilkay Gundogan, but could do nothing about the final goal.
Lewandowski formed a nice one-two with Gundogan, who slotted the ball to Roberto and with a quick pass the Polish striker easily tapped in to end Napoli's hopes.
Minutes earlier, Napoli had the best chance to equalize, but Jesper Lindström's header went just wide of the target and the Italian champions, who reached the quarter-finals for the first time last season, were eliminated.
(Reporting by Trevor Steines; Editing by Ken Ferris)
((Trevor.Stynes@thomsonreuters.com;))
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