IN BRIEF Messi gives Setien 1st Barcelona win
Lionel Messi scored against 10-man Granada to give Barcelona manager Quique Setien a 1-0 win in his debut for the two-time defending La Liga champions Sunday in Barcelona.
Granada’s German Sanchez was sent off with 20 minutes to play after getting a second yellow card for fouling Messi.
A hole then appeared in the visitors’ defense which Messi exploited by passing to Antoine Griezmann inside the area. Griezmann quickly squared the ball for Arturo Vidal, who used his heel to roll it on for Messi to slot into the corner of the net for the 76th-minute winner.
Setien, who last coached at Real Betis, was hired by Barcelona on Monday after it fired Ernesto Valverde.
Barcelona stayed ahead of Real Madrid on goal difference. Both teams are eight points ahead of third-place Atletico Madrid after 20 of 38 rounds.
■ Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah each scored to lead Premier League leader Liverpool to a 2-0 win over host Manchester United. Liverpool remained unbeaten through 22 rounds and moved 16 points clear of two-time defending league champ Manchester City and has a match in hand.
College football: Clemson LB Isaiah Simmons will skip his senior season and enter the NFL draft. Simmons, a unanimous All-America selection and the Butkus Award winner, is considered by many draft experts a top-10 pick.
Mixed martial arts: Conor McGregor stopped Donald Cerrone with a head kick and punches 40 seconds into the first round at UFC 246 on Saturday night in Las Vegas to earn his first victory since 2016. The 31-year-old Irish former two-division champ returned from a three-year stretch of inactivity and outside-the-cage troubles. McGregor (22-4) floored Cerrone (36-14) only 20 seconds into the bout with a perfectly placed left kick to the head, and he mercilessly finished on the ground.
Tennis: Defending champ and No. 3 seed Naomi Osaka of Japan beat Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-4 in the first round of the Australian Open on Sunday in Melbourne. In other notable action, No. 8 seed and seven-time champ Serena Williams downed Russia’s Anastasia Potapova 6-0, 6-3.