Manchester City and England's number one goalkeeper, Joe Hart, has given his vote of confidence to the Catalan giants, ahead of their UEFA Champions League final tomorrow evening, with Serie A giants Juventus.
Hart, who pulled off a Man of the Match display to only limit Barça to a one-goal victory over the Citzens in their Camp Nou clash, has publicly stated that he's in awe of the La Liga champions, who were better than City in every department and would have embarrassed them, if he himself was not on-form and alert to deny the likes of the formidable trio: Luis Suárez, Neymar and Lionel Messi.
He had this to say, to the Mirror: "I hope they win the Champions League, and a lot of it will be down to Messi. We got beat quite comfortably over the two legs, it is fair to say. We battled hard to get through the group stage and we didn't really get to our full level. We did, maybe, in the second-half of the first leg at the Ethiad - if we did that for the other three-quarters of the tie, we would have given ourselves a chance but it is difficult at the top, top level.
Juventus have done fantastically, these are the two top teams at the moment. We have got a long way to go but we are willing to work hard, we are a good club with great owners and the players want to do it in Europe as well."
On his superb performance against Barcelona, Hart stated: "It was a busy, busy night and from the perspective of a young guy who loves football - the Camp Nou, against the best players in the world, it was really exciting. But I enjoyed the save at Swansea [superb diving save to deny Federico Fernandez's header] because we got the victory. Messi was magical in both legs against us - every time he touched the ball, something was going to happen. Watching him since Christmas, when Barca have kicked on, the only way to stop him, it seems, is with five or six players - and as he attracts those players, he sees a pass to someone else and they'll score."