LIONEL MESSI WARMED up for his anticipated fifth World Player of the Year crown by scoring his first hat-trick of the season to move Barcelona back to the top of La Liga by cruising past Granada 4-0 on Saturday.
Messi effectively ended the contest within the first 15 minutes with two easy finishes before completing his hat-trick after the break to take his tally to 12 goals in 10 games since returning from knee ligament damage in November, while Neymar completed the rout late on.
The European champions lead Atletico Madrid, who travel to Celta Vigo on Sunday, by a point and are now five clear of Real Madrid.
Real begin a new era under Zinedine Zidane later on Saturday when they host Deportivo la Coruna at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Messi is expected to beat off teammate Neymar and current holder Cristiano Ronaldo to the Ballon d’Or on Monday after leading Barca to a second treble of La Liga, Champions League and Copa del Rey in six years last season.
And despite the fine form of Neymar and Luis Suarez in his two-month absence, Messi again demonstrated he is Barca’s main man as Luis Enrique’s men bounced back from drawing three of their last four La Liga games.
Arda Turan made his first league start for the hosts after Barca’s year-long ban from registering new players was lifted earlier in the week, and the Turkish international provided his first assist for the club with a lovely through ball for Messi to slot home after just eight minutes.
Barca’s all-star front three combined to perfection six minutes later as Neymar’s cross was helped first time by Suarez into the path of Messi to roll past the helpless Andres Fernandez.
The hosts should have been much further clear by half-time than 2-0 as Suarez inexplicably fired wide with the goal at his mercy after a neat one-two with Neymar.
Fernandez also produced a fine save to temporarily deny Messi his hat-trick before Neymar drilled a volley into the side-netting.
The Brazilian was frustrated again just before the hour mark when he fired against the post from a narrow angle, but Messi followed up to complete his hat-trick.
Neymar finally got his goal seven minutes from time when Messi cleverly let Suarez’s cross roll across the area knowing he was in an offside position and Neymar took his time before blasting the ball into the roof of the net for his 18th goal of the season.
Full confidence in the team to perform very well for the rest of the tournament!
@Jasper Conroy: Really???
2007 comparisons are lazy. We hammered Scotland in our first match. People seem to have completely forgotten that.
11 points from a possible 15 after 3 games. Not a bad return at all. Time to get behind the team and stop the moaning. #COYBIG
Some load of negative tosspots in the media. Same goons who downplayed the grand slams, dismissed wins over NZ/SA and cheered for Racing over Leinster are now delighted. It’s like they are in competition to be the new Tom Humphries.
The social media campaigns from the sponsors are grating, but they always are no matter the sport or team.
It never ceases to amaze me how the commentators/pundits swing, we beat a poor Scotland and we are set for a quater final against SA no account taken of Japan who should be tier one nation and who accounted for SA in 2015, who are also hosting. We then put 35 points on Russia get the bonus point and Eddie is not satisfied, the same Eddie who presided over the debacle of 2007 in FRANCE. Give this squad a break and get behind then nothing is to be gained from negativity. Bestie and the Boys Abú
Just 22 points and one try conceded in 3 games is a very healthy stat .
@Limón Madrugada:
“Just 22 points and one try conceded in 3 games”
And we scored 11 tries to 1 conceded :: if we stated that before the WC we would have been happy :: but in that, there was 1 loss !!!!!!
Yeah the negativity is getting to me also. Can we do a bit of analysis on the positives? Also aside from Samoa game we probably won’t go into another game as favourites no matter how far we go in the tournament and that is just fine by me. That’s where the Irish pysche is more comfortable and more dangerous. I hope we play well against Samoa and get the result needed to put pressure on Japan and then we put the fear of God into our opponents in the quarters!
@Brian O’Driscoll: have to agree, finally watched the Russia game. There was a lot of good variation in attack which ended with a poor handling error or a Russian infringement (often not penalised – for Henderson’s knock on over the line, it was actually good Russian D but the 7 knocked on in the preceding ruck). The evidence is there that Ireland are about to kick on. Everyone would take a loss in the group if it meant peaking at QF stage and you can see Ireland are starting to ramp it up.
Hugh Cahill’s and Donal Lenihan’s rugby commentary is also very poor and schizophrenic. The keyboard warriors and Ed O Sullivan’s of this world will be the biggest fans when we put Samoa to the sword by at least 30 points. COYBIG
@Brian O’Driscoll:
@Brian O’Driscoll: have to agree. I finally watched the Russia game and the evidence is there that they are beginning to vary their attacking play which often ended with an error or Russian infringement. They played good ball. Russia was not the game to correct the Japan loss. What good would it be to go out and put 70 on Russia. It’s better they tried to evolve the game. No one wants 4 pool wins if it means a QF loss. I can see Ireland ramping up their game plan ahead of a QF showdown and surprised others who are professionals in the game don’t see it.
People like Ed O Sullivan and the keyboard warriors who think the Russian game was the game to correct the woes of the Japan loss are fools. The time to do it is at the QF.
We’ll put 30 on Samoa.
I’m sick to the back teeth of all the negativity. The final straw for me was Sean Farrell on the42′s rugby podcast yesterday moaning that Ireland’s first try against Russia was an old Joe Schmidt strike move. Some people will always find something negative to say.
Completely down to the players themselves, their mind set, body language, which to date hasn’t been great.
They’ve done it before so they can up it again.
Ah Martin you should know more than anyone that negativity does nothing for any teak.
Team that is