Pep Guardiola’s side with tonights victory on the road against Shakhtar Donetsk marks the fourth year in a row that the club makes it into the semi-finals of Champions League play. They will most likely play Real Madrid who hold a commanding 4-0 lead over Tottenham.

Tonights match was more of a formality than anything else with the club having such a large advantage having won the first leg 5-1 at the Camp Nou. That being said Pep did not hold back fielding a strong starting lineup with the only major changes being Pedro starting on the bench and Afellay getting the start for Andres Iniesta who was allowed to stay in Barcelona with his new born.

The match got off to a quick start with Shakhtar on the offensive early putting Valdes to work in the eighth minute making a great save off a point blank attempt by Costa. Their offensive continued but Barça sat back and weathered the storm with Valdes making great saves all night long.

In the 32nd minute Lionel Messi mounted an offensive with his patented chip shot in the box but the Shakhtar keeper, Pyatov, was not going to fall for it again and made the save. Ten minutes late Afellay followed with an attempt of his own but his blast was sent directly to the keeper.

Barcelona added to their large lead in the 43rd minute when Messi received a pass from Dani Alves at the top of the box and zig zagged his way through the defense and sent a low shot to the right corner of goal beating Pytov.

Messi’s goal would not only extend their insurmountable lead but also was his 48th of the season giving him the new record beat his old record which he previously held with Ronaldo.

Though the crowd at Donbass Arena continued to cheer on their team in the second half, Lucescu side could not muster a goal. Barcelona was too much for the Ukrainian side to break through. They had a few more attempts with their closest change coming in the 74th minute off a direct shot by Mkhitaryan but Victor Valdes deflected the shot holding on to the clean sheet.

The victory and a place in the semi-finals means that Guardiola has made it to semi’s every season he has been in charge of the club and their fifth time making that far in the last six seasons. They can now shift their attention to this weekends match up against Real Madrid who they could be seeing a lot of if the whites are able to dispose of Tottenham on Wednesday.