Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, has hailed Joe Hart as a “phenomenon”, after the Manchester City goalkeeper denied him several times, in their 1-0 win on Wednesday in the Champions League.
Ivan Rakitic scored the only goal of the game, as Barca progressed into the last eight with a 3-1 aggregate win. The margin would have been greater, if not some excellent stops from the England number one.
Hart, who saved a penalty from Messi in the first leg, said it was an “honour” to come up against the Argentina captain and Messi has now returned the praise.
“Joe Hart had an absolutely fantastic game,” Messi told UEFA.com . “I already knew he was a top keeper, but it was impressive in this performance how he just stopped everything that came his way, with either his hands or his body – he is a phenomenon.
“The fortunate thing, given all that, was we managed to get through the tie, which was all we wanted, so that we could be in Friday’s quarter-final draw.
“These nights are just so tremendous to play in and wonderful for the public to watch, especially when the game is played like this.
“The opposition was full of great players and both teams just try to play really good, open football. Both City and Barcelona wanted to be on the ball, to do things with it, and it ended up as a pretty spectacular game.”
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