Messi magic too hot for Cesc

Posted Wednesday, March 09, 2011 by The Sun

CESC FABREGAS had talked emotively of how his first game at the Nou Camp was a fulfilment of all his dreams.

How skippering Arsenal in front of over 90,000 fellow Catalans would be the greatest moment of his club career.

How nights didn't come much sweeter than this. In the end, it turned into a nightmare.

And at the centre of it all was 23-year-old Fabregas himself.

Yes, Arsenal had their moment of bad luck when Robin van Persie was harshly sent off for time-wasting when Swiss referee Massimo Busacca seemed to bow to the collective will of the Nou Camp.

A home decision if there ever was one. All that was required was a finger-wagging and a warning that, next time, the Arsenal striker was off.

Arsene Wenger, typically, went off the deep end and you could sympathise in many ways.

But no one should forget that Arsenal played second fiddle to this magnificent Spanish guitar for much of the night.

For so long it had been the old tiki-taka, tiki-taka.

The sound of the Barcelona magic roundabout in full, majestic flow.

The pinball wizardry of midfield conjurors Xavi and Iniesta and the ball-on-a-string running of the incomparable Lionel Messi.

The sleight-of-hand way in which 'the Blaugrana' move the ball around with a mesmerised opposition in a trance and almost unable to get a touch.

And it even got to Fabregas, the young Spaniard who shared his country's finest hour along with many of these Barcelona players in South Africa last summer.

It was almost as if he wanted to join in the great Catalan ballet as he returned to the Nou Camp for the first time since leaving Barca at 16.

But, at the pivotal moment, he committed an act of folly. A suicidal back-heel on the edge of the Arsenal box that finally broke the Gunners' resistance in first-half added time.

It ended with another classic goal from Messi, his 47th in 44 games for club and country this term - and one that sent the Nou Camp into paroxysms of delight.

It was an outstanding piece of finishing that brought increasingly devoted applause from the faithful as it was shown time and again during the break.

As Messi chipped substitute keeper Manuel Almunia and volleyed home with a flourish, Fabregas held his head in his hands.

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