With the game deadlocked at 0-0 and more than an hour played, Messi produced two contrasting goals of the highest quality in the space of three devastating minutes to leave the German champion with a mountain to climb in the second leg.
The first strike, a rasping angled shot from just outside the area, came in the 77th minute and left the previously impregnable Manuel Neuer with little chance.
The second goal, in the 80th minute, was the stuff of video games, with Messi leaving Bayern defender Jerome Boateng for dead before chipping Neuer.
The Camp Nou crowd erupted and so did Messi's contemporaries on Twitter:
