Lionel Messi celebrates his fourth goal against Arsenal, at Nou Camp, on Tuesday

Barcelona: Lionel Messi produced a finishing masterclass Tuesday to kill off Arsenal’s Champions League hopes and leave the watching world breathless with admiration.

A 21-minute first-half hat-trick and a fourth goal two minutes from time from the Argentina forward gave Barcelona a 4-1 second-leg win that took them through to the semi-finals 6-3 on aggregate, as briefly reported in Wednesday’s Late City edition.

They will now face Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan, who brushed past CSKA Moscow, winning both ties 1-0.

Arsenal had taken the lead through Nicklas Bendtner, although their spirited performance was all but forgotten by half-time as a result of the astounding brilliance of Messi.

“We had chances, we missed a few opportunities when we could have been more dangerous, but congratulations to Barcelona, they were better than us,” Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, conceded.

“Defensively we gave them goals. When they have players like Messi it means when you make a mistake, you pay for it. For me he is the best player in the world by a distance. He is the only player who can change direction at such pace.”

The 22-year-old has scored 39 goals in all competitions for the European champions this season to confirm his status as the world’s best player.

But it is the quality of his goals as much as the quantity that leaves spectators awestruck.

In three years in the Barcelona first team he has eclipsed the achievements there of his compatriot, mentor and national team coach, Diego Maradona, and a successful World Cup this summer will catapult him into the category alongside Maradona as one of the game’s all-time greats.

With Messi in this form, Argentina will approach the tournament in good heart despite their shambolic qualifying campaign. His four goals in a packed Nou Camp were the stuff of genius, a perfect amalgam of power, precision and poise.

Bendtner took advantage of Theo Walcott’s cross to open the scoring in the nineteenth minute, but Arsenal could hold the lead for only two minutes as Messi began to weave his magic.

His first goal was the product of quick feet and sheer power as he capitalised on a poor clearance from Mikael Silvestre to blast the ball past Manuel Almunia.

In the 37th minute Messi demonstrated his poacher’s instinct after Eric Abidal’s cross had been helped on by Pedro Rodgriguez, but the best came five minutes later when he was released one-on-one with Almunia and produced an audacious chip while running at pace to beat the Arsenal goalkeeper.

Most of the very best players in the world might not even have attempted it. For his fourth, he beat two defenders before sending the ball through Almunia’s legs. “He is the best I have faced,” the Spaniard said. “He is the best in the world. You try to anticipate what he is going to do but it is so difficult because his skills are so high. He can do what he wants with the ball at any moment.”

There were no complaints from Bendtner, either. “We tried as much as we could but they were stronger than us,” the Arsenal goalscorer said.

The Times, London