By Pete Jenson for MailOnline
Published: 21:57 GMT, 19 February 2019 | Updated: 22:14 GMT, 19 February 2019
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The faces of the Barcelona players on the final whistle told the story – Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba exchanged bemused 'how did we not win that' looks and Luis Suarez curled his lip and frowned his brow painfully.
Barcelona had fired 25 shots at the Lyon goal, albeit only five of them on target, but had failed to come away with an away goal on Tuesday night.
Manchester City couldn’t beat Lyon in the group stage and Barcelona had suffered just as much. Barcelona will be favourites in the second leg but the Ligue 1 side have ensured they go to the Camp Nou with, at the very least, a puncher’s chance of making the quarter-finals.
Barcelona had 25 attempts on goal during an absorbing first leg clash in France but could not grab a crucial away goal
Lyon were delighted to keep a clean sheet and the tie is evenly poised with the second leg to take place on March 13
There were 17 shots just in the first half and 13 of them were from Barcelona. No sooner had Cunyet Cakir blown his whistle than Lionel Messi surged at the centre of Lyon’s defence and was brought down by Houssem Aoaur who was booked.
From the kick – now with the customary player lying down behind the wall to make sure Messi doesn’t roll it in as everyone jumps – he floated it over.
Aoaur then showed quick feet at the other end of the pitch and forced Marc-Andre ter Stegen to push the ball out for a corner. It lifted an already noisy Stade de Lyon and the place was really jumping when Martin Terrier’s thunderous drive was pushed on to his bar by Marc Andre ter Stegen who then gratefully grabbed the ball as it bounced down and spun backwards towards his goal.
Lyon forward Depay feels the full force of a robust challenge from behind by Barcelona defender Clement Lenglet
The Dutch star went close with an instinctive strike from just outside the box in the first few minutes of the second-half
Messi then fired over from Jordi Alba’s cross He was furious at his own inaccuracy. Ousmane Dembele was just as guilty firing into Lyon keeper Anthony Lopes’ legs.
Not all attacks ended in shots. Gerard
