Barcelona 5-1 Espanyol: An unstoppable Messi does it again!

Full-time: Barcelona 5-1 Espanyol
Goals: Lionel Messi (45′, 50′, 81′); Piqué (53′), Pedro (78′)
Match date: December 7, 2014
Stadium: Camp Nou
Competition: La Liga
Barcelona line-up: Bravo, Jordi Alba, Mascherano, Piqué, Daniel Alves, Rakitic, Busquets, Xavi, Neymar, Lionel Messi, Suárez.

The Catalan derby took place this Sunday afternoon at the Camp Nou, as Barcelona hosted and crushed their city rivals Espanyol with a clear 5-1 scoreline. Luis Enrique went into this game with a quite strong lineup, leaving only Andrés Iniesta on the bench as a precaution due to his recent physical problems. Neymar, Messi and Suárez were the attacking men on Barça‘s front line.

It would be Espanyol drawing the first blood though, in a play where Sergio Busquets lost possession near the half-line and allowed for Sergio Garcia to run forward without much opposition, right until he got inside Barça‘s box. Piqué was way too passive defending the Espanyol forward, and a low left footed strike was enough to beat Bravo and deliver the visitors an early lead.

Barça tried to react straight after, but they would only reach the equalizer very near to the half-time break, when Lionel Messi decided to present the Camp Nou spectators with another of his brilliant moves. The FIFA Ballon d’Or nominee picked up a pass just on the outside of the box and then curled a perfect shot into the back of the net to make it 1-1.

The second half basically started with Barcelona at full throttle and the result of that was another two goals scored in less than 10 minutes. First, Messi got to score his second, this time after nutmegging an Espanyol defender in his way to grant the hosts the first lead of the afternoon. Three minutes later, Gerard Piqué redeemed himself from his poor defending in Espanyol‘s opening goal and scored from a header, following a corner-kick on the right. This was curiously Barcelona’s first goal from a corner-kick in the past 9 months!

In the 78th minute of the game, the Asturian Pedro Rodríguez also got the chance to add his name to the scoresheet and he has done through a clean right-foot finish when he only had Kiko Casilla in front of him. Espanyol seemed to have already given up on the game, but there would still be time for a fifth goal and for Lionel Messi to complete his hat-trick. The 27-year old player finished off a fast attacking play that he had initiated by himself and once he received the return pass from Pedro, he easily pushed it in with his right foot to set the final score in 5-1 to Barcelona. This was Messi‘s 3rd hat-trick in his last 4 games for the Blaugrana!

Sources: fcbarcelona.com / sports.yahoo.com

Watch the highlights video from Barcelona 5-1 Espanyol match:

Barcelona and Neymar match photos against Espanyol: