Sevilla 2-4 Barcelona: Messi hat-trick salvages points
The Argentine was at his best while Barcelona suffered in Sevilla as a whole
Lionel Messi put on a one-man show as Barcelona beat Sevilla 4-2 to go 10 points clear at the top of La Liga.
SEV
2 ________________ 4
FCB
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Sevilla FC
Vaclik, Navas (c), Mercado (Vázquez, min. 50), Kjaer, Sergi Gómez, Wöber (Amadou, min. 55), Rog (Roque Mesa, min. 60), Banega, Sarabia, Promes y Ben Yedder.
FC Barcelona
Ter Stegen, Semedo (Sergi Roberto, min. 45), Piqué, Umtiti, Alba, Busquets, Rakitic, Arturo Vidal (Dembélé, min. 45), Messi (c), Coutinho (Aleñá, min. 78) y Luis Suárez.
Goles
1-0, min. 21: Jesús Navas. 1-1, min. 25: Messi. 2-1, min. 41: Mercado. 2-2, min. 67: Messi. 2-3, min. 83: Messi. 2-4, min. 90+2: Suárez.
Árbitro
Mateu Lahoz (Comité Valenciano). Amonestó con cartulina amarilla a Piqué (min. 38), Rog (min. 48), Wöber (min. 55), Vázquez (min. 69), Kjaer (min. 80), Sarabia (min. 82) y Roque Mesa (min. 89).
Incidencias
Partido de la jornada 25 de LaLiga Santander, disputado en el estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán ante 40.661 espectadores. Se guardó un minuto de silencio en memoria de Roberto Alés, ex presidente del Sevilla.
The Barcelona skipper cancelled out Jesus Navas’s opener with a sensational volley from Ivan Rakitic’s cross.
Then after Gabriel Mercado sent Sevilla ahead again, against a Barcelona side suffering in defence, Messi was on target to level.
It was another special goal, this time with his right foot, curling home from the edge of the box from Ousmane Dembele’s pass.
Barca had played badly, with Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho particularly anonymous, but Messi was, well, Messi.
He completed his hat-trick after Carles Alena’s shot deflected into his path, lofting the ball over Tomas Vaclik.
And the show wasn’t over, with Messi producing a delightful assist to tee up Suarez for the fourth.
The Uruguayan ended a bad run without a goal, this his first in six games.
Messi, 31, now has 25 La Liga goals for the season, and is the division’s top scorer by a country mile - next is Suarez on 16.
This was his 50th career hat-trick and 650th goal in his career, his 585th for Barcelona.
Even though the Catalans, who saw Samuel Umtiti return from injury to play for the first time in months, were disappointing, Messi was at his brutal best to earn them the points ahead of a huge week.
