Actually Barcelona won because Messi on the right wing stretched the opponents midfield, almost always creating an overload on the left hand side of the pitch. Messi by himself takes 2 players just to try and stop him, if Alves goes past Messi it takes 3 players on the right side of the pitch to stop it. As soon as this happens Alba and quite often Neymar are wide open in space as the opponents midfield are on the right hand side. Messi has the passing range as Xavi and Pirlo and most often can do the left foot cross to Neymar or Alba which most wingers cannot do. Its like a cheat code in a Fifa football game, and Barcelona could overload teams to death just by doing it most of the time.
Rafinha is slower and weaker than Adama on the wing and against strong players does nothing. Having versatile players is good but if they are average at everything then what is wrong in having 1 or 2 players who are one dimensional , but are very good at it. Against Man United they only put 1 player on Rafinha and just packed the midfield and he only created 1 chance and hardly dribbled past anyone. Barcelona's formation is based on stretching the opposition, and the best way to stretch the opposition is to have wingers who you must mark with 2 players i.e Messi and Neymar. Otherwise all you end up doing is watching the wingers just pass the ball back to midfield as they don't have the skill to dribble past one player i.e. Pedro (on right hand side), Munir, Sandro, Rafinha, Alves
