Gerard Pique: "If Messi is inspired, you can't stop him"

Lionel Messi’s brace led Barcelona to a 3-0 win over Bayern Munich

Barcelona, May 7 (IANS) Barcelona defender Gerard Pique was delighted with the 3-0 win at home against Bayern Munich which sees his side take a huge strike towards qualifying for the Champions League final.

Lionel Messi scored two sensational goals and Neymar added a third in the last minute of injury time to give Barcelona a massive advantage over Bayern, who are coached by former Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola.

"We have played a sensational game. We were very good in defence for the 90 minutes and on top of that, we created chances. Luis Suarez missed one in the first half but in the second we were able to make our counter-attacks count," said Pique on Wednesday night.

Despite the result it was a hard-fought win for Barcelona who didn' t open scoring until the 78th minute and in which Bayern had more possession than the Catalans -- something that has only happened once this season.

"We don't feel so uncomfortable when we don't have the ball. When we won it back we were able to exploit out counter-attacks," insisted Pique.

He then praised Messi, who Guardiola had said was "unstoppable" on Tuesday.

"Pep knows him well and if he is inspired you can't stop him. His goals were great, the second was incredible and we have to be grateful. Bayern lost 1-3 against Porto in the quarterfinals and went through (after winning the return 6-1). They are a great team and their fans will pressure a lot in the Alliance Arena," said Pique, who warned that there was still work to do.