Lionel Messi on Sunday scored his 400th La Liga goal, a total his coach Ernesto Valverde called “monstrous,” as Barcelona terrorized Sociedad Deportiva Eibar to reclaim their five-point cushion at the top of the table.
Messi drove the ball into the bottom corner after being teed up by Luis Suarez, who added two goals to his own tally either side of the Argentine marking another historic record at the Camp Nou.
“It’s monstrous,” Valverde said after the 3-0 victory. “It’s easy to say, but you have to score them one after the other, it’s a long-term job. His numbers are stratospheric, incredible. He is from another galaxy.”
Photo: Reuters
The victory saw Valverde’s side restore their advantage over Atletico Madrid, who had briefly cut the gap to two points after beating Levante UD earlier in the day.
“There is a lot of time left,” Valverde said. “It is a good cushion, but nothing is done yet.”
Real Madrid won too, beating Real Betis Balompie, to ensure Spain’s big three all prevailed in the same round for only the fourth time this season.
Real Madrid remain 10 points adrift of Barcelona, while Messi extended his own hefty lead as the division’s all-time top scorer ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo, now at Juventus in Italy, owns a better goals-to-game ratio, with his 311 strikes coming in 292 matches. Messi’s quadruple-century arrived in his 435th match.
The pressure had been cranked up a notch after Antoine Griezmann’s second-half penalty earned Atletico a 1-0 victory over Levante.
Griezmann has now scored all of Atletico’s last six goals and his latest proved the difference in a cagey contest at the Wanda Metropolitano.
“We all pull the cart in difficult moments,” Griezmann said. “I cannot do anything without my teammates.”
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