Messi nets goals 50 & 51, Barca & Madrid stay locked at top

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Lionel Messi scored his 50th and 51st goals in all competitions to help Barcelona keep the pressure on Real Madrid in the Spanish league’s tight title race on Saturday.

Neymar and Luis Suarez also struck in a 4-1 victory over Villarreal that increased the combined goal tally of Barcelona’s trio of star strikers to 102 in the campaign.

Barcelona’s fifth straight win kept it level on points with Real Madrid, which even without Cristiano Ronaldo eased to a 4-0 victory at already relegated Granada.

Barcelona holds the tiebreaker over Madrid, but Madrid has three matches to play after this round to Barcelona’s two. That means Madrid controls its own fate as it tries to dethrone Barcelona and lift its first Liga title since 2012.

“We now have three finals left,” Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said. “It doesn’t matter what Barcelona does, we have to focus on our matches.”

Messi’s goal on the last kick of the first half tilted a match that was wide open for the first 45 minutes in while in Barcelona’s favor.

Neymar, who excelled in his incursions from the left flank throughout, opened the scoring when he poked in a shot by Messi that hit a defender and fell to him in front of goalkeeper Andres Fernandez.

Villarreal responded with a goal by striker Cedric Bakambu in the 32nd when Roberto Soldado played him clear on the break as he sped away from Gerard Pique.

Soldado barely missed with a header on the other end before Neymar helped Messi reach the 50-goal mark for the fifth time in his career.

Neymar deftly dribbled past a pair of defenders and laid off for Messi to put the ball on his left boot.