Alia iacta est. This then was a slightly disheartening sight - one that did not belong at the Nou Camp, a global institution of footballing delight, one built on the precise science of triangulation, and, in the Guardiola era, on possession, pressing and positioning, but the Catalans needed to complete a rearguard action to fulfill a desperate and impossible achievement, and resist another brutal assessment at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain.

The hosts commenced with an audacity befitting Barcelona - Kevin Trapp punching, without much coordination and intent, and flapping at the ball for Enrique’s XI to offer that moment of renaissance against the nouveau riche Parisiens, forever yearning for that moment of continental glory beyond the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

Barcelona played with brutal pressing, both scintillating and suffocating, almost ridiculing Munich’s supreme strangulation strategies in Europe. They - Enrique, MSN, and the ever-nascent Catalan nation - still belonged to the european establishment, notwithstanding the fading powers of their coach and the South American trident.

But for all the irksome apprehension - Enrique’s resignation, Andres Iniesta’s demise, Barcelona’s feeble back line - the Catalans did mount an all-encompassing assault of D-Day proportions - apocalyptic, and with the desired outcome, even if so implausible with a few minutes remaining. There was Neymar Junior. And again Neymar, and then Sergio Roberto, all in the space of seven minutes in an ending of biblical, and from Barcelona’s point of view, delirious, proportions.

PSG’s back-firing strategy

In football, there is a simple truth - possession always offers the possibility of goals - it is a dogma that Barcelona have long adhered to, but one that Unai Emery, ever-looking the Basque dracula, refuted, with a defensive line so deep that it reeked of silly idiocy in thwarting a potent forward line. It was - whisper it - suicidal.

Cue the second half. For the briefest of moments, PSG ventured into the opponent’s half, with the dread of a six-year old at his/her first school day. Emery had ordered a different approach, but Barcelona were awarded a freak penalty, the outcome of Neymar’s tumble over Thomas Meunier’s head. At best, again - ask Arsenal - the official’s verdict was dubious.

But, PSG applied a trusted and tested method of failure - sit back and absorb the pressure, without success, and without the prospect of containing a rampant and accomplished Barcelona, and when all hope had faded, when the world seemed on the edge of an abyss with resurrection utopian for PSG, up popped Edison Cavani, perpetually the Dirk Kuyt of international football, a merchant of cheap goals, forever failing in crunch games, with a key goal.

In the 51st minute, Cavani did what he tends to do, fluff a major opportunity by striking the woodwork, and when everyone had forsaken him, he reversed footballing logic. With a candid and unwavering self-confidence, almost exclaiming, pressed between his lips, ‘Where is Zlatan?’ he dispatched a strike with aplomb and a destiny beyond question.

And so, back in Doha, that hub of glass and steel, a helluva celebration in the West Bay ensued, because, here was the footballing dominion the Qatari craved for in the form of an unlikely, lanky Uruguayan striker, whom they had treated, at times, with much disdain. After all, Zlatan had been their talismanic obsession, their ultimate refuge in barren times of PSG-stagnation, their uber-star, elevated above everyone else.

And then, it all changed. Paris became a tragic parody and not even Cavani, the bright spark in PSG’s season, saved the Parisians. PSG froze - where was the XI from the Parc des Princes, who had so dominated Barcelona? The ebullient Di Maria? The electric Draxler? The application of a game plan? The menial fortitude? They were not present and, collectively, PSG capitulated.

The man of the match - Deniz Aytekin?

For all of the superlatives for Barcelona - astonishing, astounding and, for the millennials among us, amazeballs - the protagonist in this Champions League’s round of sixteen second leg was not the excellent Neymar, the princeling in the shadow of Messi, but an internet entrepreneur from Oberasbach, Bavaria, Germany.

The referee Deniz Aytekin had a defining impact on a match that will, in the annals of football history, be anoted as the zenith of turnarounds - Aytekin’s awarding of two controversial penalties will become a mere footnote amid the brouhaha over Barcelona.

First, in the 50th minute, Thomas Meunier stumbled, and stumbled, his body position all wrong, and Neymar, with the cunning of Baldrick, ran into the Belgian full-back. Then, in injury time, with PSG’s advantage shrinking, Suarez’s semi-schwalbe - drawing contact, but not eliciting conclusive fauling - provided Barcelona with another penalty. The decisions were peculiar and offered Barcelona, who need but a spark to play transcendent football, a path to success.