The Messi- ah
> Striker scores hattrick as Barcelona thrash PSV <
seen in this competition and sent the club into a depth of disappointment that, in truth, not even winning the double could alleviate.
Instead, Madrid rubbed salt into the wound by making it look easy and winning their third in a row.
“It is a thorn in our side,” Luis Suarez said. “It’s time to win the Champions League,” said Messi.
PSV’s coach Mark van Bommel knows what it feels like to walk out at the Camp Nou – he had a successful, albeit short, spell playing for Barca – but few of his players did.
Nick Viergever was one of them, for Ajax in 2014, but it was his rash challenge on Dembele in the 31st minute that conceded the freekick a yard outside the penalty area.
Messi sized it up and sent it spinning away from the hand of Jeroen Zoet and into the top corner. It was his eighth freekick scored in 2018. He has never scored more in a year.
The contest bristled at the start of the second half. Suarez’s delightful chip beat Zoet but not the crossbar.
PSV were still in it and could have equalised when Hirving Lozano’s finish was blocked, crucially, by Gerard Pique.
Then three goals arrived in 15 minutes. First Dembele, after leaving two PSV midfielders for dead with a dragback, unleashed into the bottom corner.
“We should have stopped him,” Van Bommel said.
Messi then latched onto a lob from Ivan Rakitic to slot home before Umtiti was sent off for a cynical block on Lozano.
It made no difference. Suarez set up Messi’s third, a brilliant flick allowing his captain the last word, after he had also had the first. – AFP