Messi starts Barcelona’s title chase with a hat-trick
BARCELONA:Lionel Messi had said it was time Barcelona won the Champions League again and he played like a man on a mission on Tuesday, scoring a hat-trick in a 4-0 demolition of PSV Eindhoven.
It was his eighth treble in the competition, taking him above the record of seven he shared with Cristiano Ronaldo to sit unmatched at the top of the list.
Messi marked other milestones too. He has now scored in 14 different Champions League campaigns, with only Raul and Ryan Giggs ahead of him on 15 and 16 respectively. Three times, Messi has hit hat-tricks in his opening game.
“He makes the extraordinary look ordinary,” said Ernesto Valverde. “Messi is a man of his word,” wrote Marca. “He said he wanted this Champions and he led by example.”
The first goal was impressive enough. Ousmane Dembele had earned a free-kick, the reward for a weaving run forward, a yard outside of the penalty area and slightly right.
PSV’s wall edged forward, desperate to close the gap, but Messi arced the ball over all of them, spinning it away from Jeroen Zoet’s left hand and into the top corner.
“He has an incredible left foot,” Ivan Rakitic said. “A lot of the time when he takes free-kicks you may as well go directly to the place where you’re going to celebrate them.”
Marca described it as a “Maradonian touch”. Eight free-kicks converted this year, another personal record broken.
If the World Cup proved anything, however, it is that Messi cannot do it alone and Barcelona will need others to shine if they are to end their Champions League hiatus.
After three straight quarter-final exits, the last a humbling collapse against Roma, this was a clean slate, a chance, at least to start to put things right.
Andres Iniesta has gone but he was not too much missed on this occasion at the Camp Nou, where Philippe Coutinho sparkled and could have had his own hat-trick had his shooting been more precise, while Dembele might have been Man of the Match before Messi stole the show.
POCHETTINO DEFENDS TEAM SELECTION
MILAN: Mauricio Pochettino defended his team selection after Tottenham suffered a ‘cruel’ 2-1 defeat by Inter Milan in their Group B opener at the San Siro.
With England righ- back Kieran Trippier and Belgium central defender Toby Alderweireld left out of the squad for what Pochettino described as ‘technical reasons’, it was a chance for Serge Aurier and Davinson Sanchez to stake their claims.
For 86 minutes they impressed in a measured away display and Spurs were comfortably protecting the lead given to them by Christian Eriksen’s deflected 53rd-minute effort.
But all the good work went to waste as Mauro Icardi volleyed in an 86th-minute equaliser and Matias Vecino looped in a 92ndminute winner.
Inevitably the post-match questions returned to Pochettino’s decision to travel to Italy without Trippier and Alderweireld, especially as Dele Alli and keeper Hugo Lloris were also unavailable because of injuries.
“Why? They were on the pitch against Liverpool and Watford. They are easy targets,” Pochettino said before losing his cool.
“We need to talk about football,” he said. “You force me to say something that is not good. You disrespect the players who were here today. You can blame me on my selection of the starting 11 but please don’t disrespect the players on the pitch.”
Pochettino has who has now lost three consecutive matches for the first time since taking over at Tottenham in 2014, felt the defeat in the San Siro disguised what he described as their best performance of the season so far.
“I’m happy with the performance — we dominated until the end — but of course the result was so cruel,” he said.