Lionel Messi scored his 100th Barcelona goal on Saturday as the Spanish champions thumped Sevilla 4-0 at the Camp Nou to go five points clear of Real Madrid.
Messi, 22, scored twice in the final five minutes to make it five goals in his last two matches and take his career total to 101, becoming the youngest player in the club’s illustrious history to reach the landmark.
An own-goal from Julien Escude and a Pedro Rodriguez strike capped a miserable second half for Sevilla, who paid a heavy price for knocking Barcelona out of the Kings Cup in midweek.
Real had crashed to their third defeat of the season with a 1-0 loss at Athletic Bilbao earlier on Saturday and Barca made them pay for the slip-up, notching their first home win of the year to open up a five-point cushion.
“There is the whole second half of the season to go, so we shouldn’t get too complacent,” said Messi, who leads the goalscoring charts with 14.
It was the third meeting between Barca and Sevilla in 11 days and after losing out in the Kings Cup, Barcelona set the score straight as Sevilla fell to a fourth consecutive league defeat and now languish down in sixth.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic returned from suspension for Barcelona and should have scored in the sixth minute, but arrived too early to convert Thierry Henry’s cross.
Henry almost scored himself on 12 minutes, but Andres Palop rushed out to block the French striker’s poked effort. Palop also tipped over a Lionel Messi deflected shot before halftime.
Barca got the early breakthrough in the second half with Gerard Pique’s shot deflected in off Escude.
For the subsequent quarter hour, Barca put their foot down as Palop made three saves to deny Messi and Henry, while Ibrahimovic had a header ruled out for offside.
A second goal was coming and it arrived 20 minutes from time with Xavi threading an incredible pass to subtitute Pedro, who lobbed Palop and the goal had the whole crowd on their feet applauding.
Messi scored five minutes from time and added his second in stoppage-time.
Athletic Bilbao are now level on points with Sevilla after their battling 1-0 win over Real Madrid at the San Mames.
Spanish international forward Fernando Llorente headed the decisive goal after just two minutes and Bilbao survived an onslaught — with Karim Benzema, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo all going close — to hold on for an historic win.
“We created the chances to get a better result and there was almost only one team on the pitch,” Real coach Manuel Pellegrini said. “However, you have to have some luck to convert these chances. When you lose you have obviously not done something right. There is a long way to go in the league with more than half of it remaining. Now it is important we beat Malaga at home [in the next league match].”
Bilbao hit the woodwork twice in the first minute. Carlos Gurpegi thumped the left hand post and the ball came out to Gaizka Toquero, who then crashed his shot against the other upright from inside the penalty area.
It was a warning, but Real didn’t take enough notice as they conceded a minute later.
A corner from the left took a slight deflection and Llorente powered a header past international teammate Iker Casillas.
Real had kept three consecutive clean sheets, so the goal was a shock and they responded in the best fashion with Benzema forcing a save from Gorka Iraizoz.
Real thought they had equalized when Kaka’s threaded pass found Benzema, but the Frenchman’s shot came back off the post into Iraizoz’s grateful arms.
Ronaldo, constantly jeered by the home fans, almost equalized on the hour mark, but Iraizoz thwarted him and it was the same story in stoppage-time with the goalkeeper keeping out a low drive from the Portuguese star.
In Saturday’s other game, Osasuna defeated Espanyol 2-0, with both goals from Juanfran Torres and Walter Pandiani coming in the first 10 minutes of the match.
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