Marcus Rashford ended Barcelona’s seven-year UEFA Champions League free-kick drought with a stunning strike to seal a 4-1 win over FC Copenhagen.

Sixteen teams will be competing in the Champions League playoffs in February, but FC Barcelona will not be one of them. And that’s all thanks to a marvellous 4-1 win against FC Copenhagen on the final day of the League Phase, meaning that they have finished among the top eight teams and will instead be going directly into the Last 16!

In fact, things have worked out even better than most fans had hoped. Thanks to other results going their way, Barça have ended up fifth in the overall table, and the higher a team finishes, the better the draw they can expect in the knockout rounds.

But the Catalans had to work hard for that bonus. Yet again they had to fight their way back from behind, conceding to the Danes after just four minutes and not getting any goals of their until after the half-time break.

Robert Lewandowski got things off the mark with a goal that matches an all-time record belonging to the great Leo Messi. Lamine Yamal put Barça ahead, Raphinha topped up the goal difference from the penalty spot and the evening’s work was rounded off by a stunning free-kick from Marcus Rashford.

Early setback

The blaugranes needed to win and by the more goals the better. What wasn’t in the script was that Copenhagen would score first, but that’s what happened.

Hansi Flick has spoken about the need for his team not to get caught napping in the early moments of games, but it happened again. A mix-up in midfield and 17-year-old Icelandic striker Viktor Dadason was through on goal and beat Joan García with a neat finish.

For the umpteenth time this season, Barça were playing catch-up, but it wouldn’t be until the second half that they finally got a goal back.

Lewandowski forced a couple of fine saves out of Dominik Kotarski and Eric García rattled the ball against the crossbar, but Barça hadn’t got a full grip on a physical and sometimes bad-tempered game until Lewandowski made it 1-1 on 48 minutes.

Finally level

For the Pole it was just a question of tapping home. The goal was all about the build-up, starting with a fabulous pass from Dani Olmo to find Lamine Yamal, and then the latter supplying his centre-forward with an unmissable conversion.

But nothing was decided yet. The Danes very nearly retook the lead before Barça found the all-important second.

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Blaugrana storm

Lamine Yamal struck from the edge of the area, and thanks to a deflection off a defender, an already dangerous strike became an unstoppable one as it looped over the visiting keeper and dropped into the back of the net.

Looking at how the league table stood, it didn’t look like goal difference was going to matter any more, but Barça goals are never a bad thing at Spotify Camp Nou and on 69 minutes we got another. Lewandowski was brought down in the area and Raphinha converted the perfect penalty to make it 3-1 and in doing so claim, surprisingly, his first Champions League goal of the present campaign.

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Copenhagen now needed three goals to have any chance of keeping their own Champions League campaign alive. They knew they were facing a losing battle, and instead Barça moved in for the kill.

Marcus Rashford was tasked with a free kick just outside the Danish area, and what a job he did of it! A tremendous curl found the bottom left corner of the goal, and that was 4-1!

Brazilian Gabriel Pereira did manage to scramble a header over the line only for the Copehagen defender’s goal to be over-ruled for offside, and Rashford very nearly claimed a second when his last-minute effort hit the bar, but there was very little story left for this game to tell.

Not without the need for yet another comeback, for Barça it was mission accomplished. Last sixteen here we come!