Well, talk about opening the new season of the UEFA Champions League with a marquee match up. Defending Serie A Champions AC Milan paid a visit to the Nou Camp to take on defending La Liga AND European Champions Barcelona. This is the one that everyone wanted to see.
It did not take long for the sparks to fly on the pitch either. Just 25 seconds into the match, Alexandre Pato took a nice through ball and cleanly beat Valdes to spot the ball in the back of the net and give Milan a shock 0-1 lead.
Barca was clearly stunned, and it took them a few minutes to recover and establish their usual passing and possession game. They did though. It just took a bit longer. Of course, Lionel Messi was at the heart of the Barca show, and he was creating and shooting. Generally the little genius was doing everything he could to equalize. It worked in the 36th minute. Messi slipped through the AC Milan defense, which had been playing well, and slipped it across the goal to Pedro who knocked it in to tie the match at 1-1.
Coming out into the second half, Barcelona continued to dominate proceedings. It looked like just a matter of time until they took the lead. David Villa scored on a marvelous free kick in the 50th minute to make it 2-1 Barca.
However, just when you thought it was all over, AC Milan threw a wrench into the Barca opener. They earned a corner at 90'+2 and Thiago Silva headed it in to equalize at 2-2, which was the full time result.
Obviously the result was huge for Milan. Nobody expected them to come out with a point, despite the early goal from Pato. However, they exposed Barca's central defense twice, both on Pato's goal and Silva's header at the end. It just goes to show you that Barca CAN be scored on, if you can get the ball away from them.
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