Viewers of the meeting between Real Betis and Barcelona have flooded to social media this evening, to wax lyrical about Lionel Messi.
Betis vs Barca
Barcelona travelled to the Benito Villamarín Stadium a short time ago, for a La Liga matchup.
The Blaugrana headed into proceedings aware that a victory would see them open up a hefty 10-point lead atop the Spanish top-flight table, after Atletico Madrid followed their Champions League elimination during the week with a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Athletic Bilbao last night.
Ernesto Valverde’s Barca, on the other hand, secured their qualification to the quarter-finals of the Champions League with a 5-1 thumping of Lyon at the Camp Nou in their last outing, making it 5 wins from their last 5 fixtures across all competitions.
Messi steals the show
And the stellar recent form of the Spanish champions continued tonight, as Barcelona brushed Betis aside by 4 goals to 1.
Lionel Messi opened the game’s scoring with 18 minutes on the clock, bending home a sumptuous free-kick from the edge of the box:
And the Argentinian magician was back at it again on the stroke of half-time, latching onto a perfectly-weighted reverse pass from Luis Suarez to smash home in typically-clinical fashion:
Suarez then turned goalscorer just past the hour-mark, embarking on a stunning jinking run before slotting home the visitors’ 3rd of the night:
Betis did manage to pull one back ten minutes from time through Loren Moron, but it proved little more than a consolation, as Lionel Messi went on to seal his hat-trick with a frankly-ridiculous chipped finish:
‘The best there is. The best there was. The best there ever will be.’
So incredible was Barcelona’s talisman at the Benito Villamarín this evening, that his 3rd of the night actually saw the home crowd provide a standing ovation for the 31-year-old, amid deafening chants of ‘Messi, Messi, Messi’.
And the Betis faithful were far from the only ones to have been mesmerised by what they witnessed from Messi tonight, with fans, pundits and everyone in between having since taken to Twitter in their absolute droves to pay tribute to the greatest player on the planet: