Barcelona coach Luis Enrique reveled in turning the tables on bitter rivals Real Madrid as Lionel Messi struck deep in stoppage-time to edge a thrilling El Clasico 3-2 at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday.
Messi’s second goal of the night was his 500th for Barcelona and it took the Catalan side to the top of La Liga.
“He is the best player for me in history and I have seen a lot of football,” Enrique said. “In modern football when everyone is tactically and physically better he still makes the difference. The fact he has scored his 500th goal shows all of us as Barca fans are lucky to have him identified with the club.”
Photo: AP
The timing of Messi’s strike also saw Barca gain revenge for Sergio Ramos’ stoppage-time equalizer in a 1-1 draw when the sides last met at the Camp Nou in December last year.
“It is marvelous for us to win in the 92nd minute. It is something that is normally more a characteristic of our rivals, but we like to do it too,” Enrique said.
Barca lead at the top of the table thanks to their better head-to-head record, but Real Madrid still have the advantage as they have a game in hand.
“To score in the 92nd minute is a huge confidence boost,” said Enrique, who is to leave the club at the end of the season.
However, he and Barca captain Andres Iniesta called on Messi, whose contract expires at the end of next season, not to follow him in leaving the Camp Nou.
“Barca is an incredible club with many years of history, but without doubt an important part of that history is Leo Messi,” Enrique said.
“I think the great thing about Leo is that he continues to surprise,” Iniesta said. “After so many years he is still decisive. It is an honor and a blessing for the club to have him.”
By contrast, Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane was left to lament his side’s adventurous nature in conceding in stoppage-time after being reduced to 10 men.
Messi had canceled out Casemiro’s opener before halftime, but Barca looked well on the road to victory when Ivan Rakitic’s stunning effort put the visitors 2-1 in front, before Madrid captain Ramos was sent off for a wild lunge on Messi.
However, Madrid rallied when a man down as substitute James Rodriguez fired home an equalizer four minutes from fulltime.
“Drawing the game with 10 men, to press high up the field is dangerous and we paid for that,” Zidane said. “I can’t criticize the players for anything though. We gave our all, but we didn’t manage to get the three points. We didn’t deserve to lose, but that is football.”
Madrid now need to take at least 16 points from their final six La Liga games to be guaranteed the title.
“There will be much more of a title race, but it is still in our own hands,” Zidane said.
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