Lionel Messi ends goal drought against Chelsea to hand Barcelona crucial Champions League away goal

Chelsea 1 Barcelona 1: Messi's well-taken finish changed the complexion of the tie after Willian's opener and Barca will take a slender advantage back to the Camp Nou

Lionel Messi celebrates Barcelona’s crucial away goal (AFP/Getty Images)

Barcelona come away from Stamford Bridge with the slimmest of possible advantages in a Champions League knockout, and that so fittingly reflecting the engaging tightness of this game, but so frustratingly coming from the one moment that Chelsea had allowed the gap between the teams to become so tangibly evident.

It also allowed Lionel Messi to inevitably end what had been one of the most notable negatives on his record, as he finally got his first goal against Chelsea and Thibaut Courtois. He did so inevitably exploiting the space offered up by a kamikaze Andreas Christensen pass. That gave Barca a 1-1 draw and means Chelsea simply have to score in the return in three weeks, having also undone the ingenuity displayed by Willian.

This was the greater frustration for Antonio Conte and his side. Willian’s goals had many of the same qualities as his manager’s game plan: he so expertly calculated the exact angles and space allowed to maximise the tightest of openings, in the same way his manager had worked out how to reduce the much-discussed gap between the English champions and Spanish leaders.

Over 90 minutes’ work, and so many hours on the training ground, were then undone by one slip. The Argentine great was ultimately given such an easy goal, after so many difficulties against this team.

Then again, that shows the level of side Chelsea were playing in Barca, the level of star they were up against in Messi, and the different kind of quality to this match.

Whereas so many of their pulsating past meetings have ultimately involved games exploding to produce some epic events, this was all about exploiting the finest of margins, the smallest of spaces.

It is also why one of Conte’s shows of angers will have felt more justified.

Willian celebrates his well-taken goal (Getty Images) (Getty Images,)

With Hazard as a false nine and the remaining nine outfield players charged with sitting sturdily before striding out – and that best displayed by the mostly brilliant Antonio Rudiger – Chelsea had initially done a fine job of so frustrating Barca.

It did somewhat play into the English side’s feet that this was probably as constrained and compact a Barca as they’ve ever faced. Whereas they used to flow out from possession, here they continue to build with it before abruptly striking, the players all so close together so that they’re always moving en masse.

It means two different individual things for this team, that are going to end up deciding this tie. One is that Messi is at the centre of everything more than before in terms of position, but also in terms of influence. To a much greater degree than ever before, the attacks come through him. It is often as if there can’t be a key moment without him, as he was to prove so emphatically.

Barcelona celebrate their equaliser (AFP/Getty Images)

Even before his strike, there was the free header created for Paulinho, and then an opportunity from a set-piece for Gerard Pique.

The other consequence is that, as compact as Barca are and as much as it allows them to control games, they are so suddenly open if you do manage to successfully counter against them and get in behind.

So it was on the two occasions that Willian it the frame of the goal. He rarely needs much invitation to strike from distance, but the space that opened up in front of him for both strikes implored him even more. He twice hit the ball so cleanly, but not quite clinically accurate enough.

The Brazilian was evidently just warming up, however, and finding his range as well as finding the space.

Cesc Fabregas directs Chelsea's midfield (AFP/Getty Images)

The one thing about games like this that necessarily involve the most reduced space and smallest of gaps is that they also involve the players most adept at ingeniously maximising such limitations.

It’s just that, while everyone expected that would eventually come from Messi and Iniesta, it initially came from Willian. On 62 minutes, he superbly used the reduced space to his benefit, as he used Barca defenders to shield himself from Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s eyeline before expertly guiding the ball around the goalkeeper and yet somehow inside the post.

This was clinical, and so classy.

There is an argument that Chelsea should have pressed home from there rather than dangerously sit on their lead but, whatever tactics you decide, they’re always going to be rendered moot when a defender does something as cataclysmic as Christensen.

Messi and Iniesta celebrate the former’s strike (Getty Images)

It must have felt so unfair for Conte. After a match that had displayed how much he had drilled his side to shut down all space, the defender – normally so reliable – opened it up with the type of pass you might have expected from a Barca creator. To just gift it to them made it all the more galling.

In that kind of situation, the rest of the Chelsea backline was always going to struggle, and players like Iniesta and Messi were always going to take advantage.

They now take the advantage to Camp Nou and, even if it as slim as it can possible be, it gives Conte and his side an even bigger job for that return.