BARCELONA — Barcelona's reputation has been restored. Already considered by many to be the best football team in the world, the Spanish club's 4-0 rout of AC Milan in the Champions League will go a long way to burying the memories of the two recent losses to Real Madrid. Tuesday's win, which started with two goals by Lionel Messi, also put Barcelona into the quarterfinals of the Champions League — a tournament the Catalan team has won three times in the last seven seasons. “Beyond the result and moving on to the next round, we have returned to our origins and that is what we must feel most satisfied about,” Barcelona defender Javier Mascherano said Wednesday. “The fact that we strung together some bad games undermined our confidence and our way of playing. On Tuesday, our fans went home knowing that they had seen their team again.” Heading into the match at the Camp Nou, Barcelona had been struggling a bit. The team twice lost to Real Madrid and was also disappointing in a 2-0 loss at Milan in the first leg of the Champions League series three weeks ago. That shocking string of defeats had many fans and the Spanish media suddenly asking if Barcelona's reign was finally coming to an end. But Barcelona had never in the past five seasons flopped like it had at the San Siro and against Madrid when it was simply not the best team on the field for 90 minutes. Heading into Tuesday's second leg against Milan, the situation could hardly have been more dire. No team had ever fought back from a 2-0 away loss in Champions League history, and Milan entered the match on a 10-game unbeaten run in Serie A. Still, Barcelona went for it. Before Milan was able to make two consecutive passes, Messi had linked up with Xavi Hernandez in a whirlwind move of one-touch passes right in the heart of the Milan defense before bending a left-footed strike into the net in the fifth minute. Messi added a second in the 40th with another screaming shot after Andres Iniesta had stolen the ball and fed him on the edge of the box. With the two-leg series even, Barcelona kept pouring on the pressure and David Villa scored the deciding goal in the 55th. Defender Jordi Alba capped the rout in stoppage time for a 4-2 aggregate win. Elimination this early from the Champions League would have no doubt provoked a crisis at the club, which is under constant pressure by its demanding supporters not only to always compete for every title, but to do so with flair and finesse. While Messi captured most of the accolades, the big winner Tuesday may have been Roura. He desperately needed an important victory to bolster his authority, which was under heavy fire and mounting suspicions that the players were left to manage themselves in Vilanova's absence. Both his changes to the starting 11 that lost in Milan — Villa and Mascherano — were key to getting the go-ahead goal with Mascherano robbing the ball and Villa finishing with an exquisite curling strike. In Germany, Galatasaray beat Schalke 3-2 also Tuesday to advance to the quarterfinals with a 4-3 victory on aggregate. Umut Bulut scored the winner in the fifth minute of stoppage time, though Galatasaray was already through with a 2-2 draw. Roman Neustadter put Schalke ahead in the 17th minute, but Galatasaray fought back with two goals before halftime. Hamit Altintop scored with a long-range shot against his former team in the 37th and Burak Yilmaz put the Istanbul side in front in the 42nd. Michel Bastos leveled in the 63rd and Schalke missed several chances after that to win the match. — Agencies
