Barcelona left short when Messi fails to deliver

For all their dominance and pretty passing around the edge of the penalty area in front of the London club’s massed ranks, Pep Guardiola’s side managed only six shots on target in the 1-0 defeat in the first leg and three – to Chelsea’s five – in Tuesday’s 2-2 stalemate in the return game at the Nou Camp.

Yes, Barca, whose performance was described as their ‘most tragic monologue’ by daily El Pais, were unlucky to be denied by the goal frame twice in each match and yes, Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech saved his team on several occasions. However, there is also a sense that if the soon-to-be-dethroned European champions were less obsessed with holding on to the ball and willing to hazard more risky passes into the danger areas or shoot from distance, they would now be preparing for the trip to Munich for next month’s final.

Guardiola, who like most of his squad learned Barca’s ‘tiki-taka’ brand of football based on rapid, intricate passing moves at the club’s youth school, said again after Tuesday’s bitter setback that he would remain true to that philosophy.

Yet doubts also seemed to be gnawing at the former midfielder after Barca’s hopes of a fourth straight La Liga title were all but snuffed out by Saturday’s home defeat to Real Madrid and Chelsea crushed their dreams of a third continental crown in four years.

“We are not a team that can play in different ways,” the 41-year-old, who has led Barca to 13 trophies since taking over in 2008, told a news conference. “We have a peculiar way of playing and the opposition adjusts to that and that’s it.

“I was just telling them, attack, attack, attack and we never stopped but they [Chelsea] also counter-attacked well. Maybe this is a lesson I should learn, that we should hold back and not be so offensive.”

Barca have certainly missed the goal-scoring prowess of injured Spain forward David Villa and they could have done with a player with the physical presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to unsettle Chelsea’s imposing defenders. The volatile Swede spent the 2009-10 campaign in the Catalan capital but fell out with Guardiola and was sold to AC Milan.

One man Barca have always been able to rely on during their recent golden period is World Player of the Year Messi but the Argentine failed to produce when it counted for the third straight game, suggesting the team may rely too much on his goals and assists.

Contrast that with Real, where strikers Karim Benzema and Gonzalo Higuain have weighed in with more than 20 goals each in La Liga and the Champions League to compliment Cristiano Ronaldo’s record-setting scoring exploits.

Messi had scored an astonishing 63 goals in all competitions this season before he took to the field in London last week in the first leg against Chelsea. However, when Barca’s season reached the crucial moment, his scoring touch – and luck – deserted him.

He failed to find the net in either leg of the semi-final, meaning he has now been unable to score against Chelsea in eight outings, by far his worst record against any club, and suffered the ignominy of seeing his second-half penalty crash off the bar on Tuesday at the Nou Camp.

Guardiola has repeatedly pointed out that Barca’s recent success has, in large part, been down to the brilliance of the softly-spoken, shy little lad from Rosario known as ‘the flea’. And he rallied behind Messi after the crushing exit to Chelsea. “We have got this far thanks to this kid,” he said. “More than ever I want to thank him for what he’s done. My admiration for him knows no limits. He is an example for all of us.

“He’s daring, he’s brave and he plays fantastically well in all kinds of different conditions. I don’t doubt he will have a few bad hours now but football is like this. Sometimes you smile and sometimes you are sad and it’s our turn to be sad and someone else is going to the final in Munich.”