Madrid
\nLionel Messi stole the show with two free-kick goals in a blistering display as Barcelona maintained their lead at the top of La Liga with a thumping 4-0 derby win over Catalan rivals Espanyol.<\/p>\n
The Argentine superstar curled home two sensational set-pieces and set up another goal as he and his teammates romped to victory at the RCDE Stadium and made sure Barca kept chasing Atletico Madrid and Sevilla at bay.<\/p>\n
Atleti and Sevilla had moved level on 28 points with Barca on Saturday after Diego Simeone\u2019s side defeated Alaves 3-0 and the Andalusians drew 1-1 at Valencia. However, Messi made sure that Ernesto Valverde\u2019s team kept their place at the top of the pile with a mesmerising display alongside front-three partners Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele that left Espanyol dead and buried by half-time.<\/p>\n
Messi began the rout in the 17th minute with a perfectly placed free-kick that arched past a desperate Diego Lopez, and followed that up by keeping possession under intense pressure before providing the pass for Dembele from which the French attacker curled in a fine second.<\/p>\n
It was then Dembele\u2019s turn to become provider a minute before the break, slipping in a super through ball that Suarez somehow took on and squeezed home from near the byline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madrid Lionel Messi stole the show with two free-kick goals in a blistering display as Barcelona maintained their lead at the top of La Liga with a thumping 4-0 derby win over Catalan rivals Espanyol. The Argentine superstar curled home two sensational set-pieces and set up another goal as he and his teammates romped to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49675,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49673\/revisions\/49675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}