Lionel Messi scored one goal and figured in four more to keep Barcelona on course to retaining their La Liga title with a 6-0 rout of Getafe on Saturday, increasing their Spanish record to 37 games without a loss in all competitions.
The only blemish on Messi’s superb display was a missed penalty in the first half, otherwise the Argentina forward led a dominant performance that suggests problems for Arsenal as the London club look to overturn a 2-0 deficit in their UEFA Champions League round-of-16 second leg on Wednesday.
Atletico Madrid stayed eight points behind the defending champions in second place after a 3-0 victory over RC Deportivo de La Coruna.
Photo: AP
Barcelona never looked back after an opening own-goal by Getafe’s Juan Rodriguez. Messi made up for his missed spot-kick by scoring to make it 4-0 before halftime, while also assisting Neymar for two goals and Munir El Haddadi on another.
“We are in a favorable position,” Barcelona manager Luis Enrique said. “When we are in-sync and quick to circulate the ball, it’s tough to stop us. This team is one-of-a-kind, different from the rest. It makes winning like this look easy.”
Third-placed Real Madrid trailed Barcelona by 15 points ahead of their visit to UD Las Palmas yesterday.
Also on Saturday, Iago Aspas scored with a brilliant chipped shot to give RC Celta de Vigo a 1-0 win over Real Sociedad to go provisionally fifth.
Barcelona got their 12th straight league win without Luis Suarez, kept on the bench by Luis Enrique ahead of Wednesday’s match.
What little fight Getafe had at the start was sucked right out of the struggling side in the eighth minute when Messi played Jordi Alba wide and his return pass intended for Messi was turned into Getafe’s goal by Rodriguez.
Not even goalkeeper Vicente Guaita saving Messi’s spot-kick three minutes later — after Neymar was fouled by Emiliano Velazquez — revived the visitors.
Andres Iniesta’s playmaking kept the action entirely in Getafe’s half and Messi’s apparently off-target shot from Iniesta’s pass became a perfect cross for El Haddadi to head home in the 19th minute.
“We didn’t have a chance,” said Getafe coach Fran Escriba, whose team have not won in nine league matches. “The game was lost from 2-0.”
Guaita did well to push Gerard Pique’s effort from another pass by Iniesta off his bar, but he could do nothing to stop Neymar’s curling strike when Messi played him clear with a pass in the 32nd minute.
“We didn’t let our opponents breathe,” Iniesta said.
Messi then got his 22nd league goal of the season when he was given time just outside the penalty area and struck a left-footed shot beyond the reach of Guaita four minutes before the break.
Messi picked right back up after the restart with a pass for Neymar to beat Guaita again in the 51st minute, the Brazilian’s 20th league goal of the campaign.
Arda Turan polished off the demolition with a bicycle-kick from close range after a corner in the 57th minute.
Atletico did not match Barcelona’s lopsided score, but their control was as complete at the Vicente Calderon in Madrid.
Saul Niguez charged into the penalty area to head Filipe Luis’ cross into the net for the 18th-minute opener. Antoine Griezmann scored his fourth goal in as many rounds with half an hour left, before substitute Angel Correa added a late goal.
Atletico host PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League tomorrow after a 0-0 away draw in the first leg.
“We are competing with Barcelona and Real Madrid, who both have great squads,” Atletico coach Diego Simeone said. “We can come out on top [in La Liga] like two years ago, or we can finish second like we are now.”
In Vigo, Aspas used one touch to expertly control Manuel “Nolito” Agudo’s long pass before a second poke of his left boot lifted the ball over goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli for the 16th-minute winner.
Sociedad Deportiva Eibar rallied for a 1-1 draw at Rayo Vallecano de Madrid in the late game.
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