Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick as Barcelona defeated nine-man Rayo Vallecano de Madrid 5-1 to become the first Spanish club to play 35 consecutive matches without a loss, breaking Real Madrid’s record of nearly three decades ago.
Midfielder Ivan Rakitic opened the scoring, Messi added the second, third and fourth goals, and Arda Turan topped it off late.
Two Rayo players were sent off for straight red cards: Diego Llorente when the hosts were 2-0 behind and Manuel Iturra at 3-1 down. Barcelona striker Luis Suarez missed a penalty-kick with his team up 3-1.
Photo: Reuters
It was Barcelona’s 10th win in a row in the La Liga, keeping it eight points ahead of second-place Atletico Madrid, which defeated Real Sociedad 3-0 on Tuesday.
Real Madrid remained 12 points behind after defeating last-place Levante UD 3-1 on Wednesday.
“Now the best part of the season begins, when we will see if we can achieve our goals,” Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said. “When this team is playing at this level, it is very hard to stop us.”
Real Madrid’s record of 34 successive unbeaten games was set in 1989 under coach Leo Beenhakker and with players such as Emilio Butragueno and Hugo Sanchez.
Barcelona has not lost since October last year in the league’s seventh round.
“We hope the streak continues because it will mean that we are adding points,” Barcelona’s Sergio Roberto said.
With the five goals on Thursday, Barcelona tied Real Madrid’s offense as the best in the league this season with 74 goals in 27 games.
Rayo have lost 10 straight games to Barcelona since returning to the first division in 2011, being outscored 28-4 in the last six. Their previous win over the Catalan club was in 2002. They lost 5-2 earlier this season, when Neymar scored four goals at the Camp Nou. Messi last year scored a hat-trick in a 14-minute span against Rayo.
Rayo were coming off three consecutive 2-2 draws in the league and were unbeaten in seven games. The loss left the team from Madrid 17th in the 20-team standings, just outside the relegation zone.
Rayo loudly complained about the two straight red cards, as well as a non-call for offside in one of Barcelona’s goals.
“I didn’t see a referee here today,” Rayo coach Paco Jemez repeated several times after being asked what he thought about the officiating crew.
Rakitic opened the scoring after a blunder by Rayo goalkeeper Juan Carlos, who dropped the ball at his feet after a high cross by Sergi Roberto into the area.
Messi started his scoring spree just a minute later after a pass by Neymar inside the box, then added another shortly after the interval when Suarez struck the post, and netted his third from close range. Messi, who had a goal disallowed in the ninth minute, has 19 league goals.
Turan closed the scoring with a late header.
Striker Alberto Manucho scored Rayo’s lone goal, also with a header.
Rayo played a man down after a hard foul by Llorente on Rakitic just before halftime, and defender Iturra was red-carded for a foul on Sergio Busquets that prompted the penalty for Barcelona.
Suarez’s powerful shot from the spot was saved by Juan Carlos. Suarez, who leads the league with 25 goals, missed a penalty against Sporting Gijon last month.
Barcelona’s next game is at Sociedad Deportiva Eibar tomorrow. Rayo plays at RCD Espanyol on Monday.
In other La Liga games on Thursday, Real Betis defeated Espanyol 3-0 in Barcelona, while Granada beat Real Sporting de Gijon 2-0 at home in a game between clubs fighting against relegation. Granada moved to 18th place, while Sporting were 19th. Sporting Gijon coach Abelardo Fernandez was irate with refereeing calls that did not favor his team.
“They can suspend me 50 games,” Fernandez said. “This was a scandal, the guys are crying in the changing room. I feel like I was robbed.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier