First Division - Day 35

Barcelona 6 - Sporting Gijón 0

Barcelona: Bravo; Sergi Roberto (Dani Alves 46‘), Piqué (Marc Bartra 66’), Mascherano, Jordi Alba; Rakitic (Arda Turan 75’), Busquets, Iniesta; Messi, Luis Suárez, Neymar. 4-3-3.
Sporting: Cuéllar; Vranjes, Luis Hernández, Lichnovsky, Isma López (Canella 70’); Rachid, Omar Mascarell; Pablo Pérez (Sanabria 62’), Halilovic, Alex Menéndez; Guerrero (Carlos Castro 75‘). 4-2-3-1.

Goals:
1-0. 13. Messi. Looped header in to net after Cuéllar pushed out Iniesta centre.
2-0. 63. Luis Suárez. Got on the end of Iniesta cross to turn ball in on far post.
3-0. 74. Luis Suárez (penalty). After Canella blocked Alves cross with arm in area.
4-0. 77. Luis Suárez (penalty). After Sanabria bundled over Neymar inside area.
5-0. 85. Neymar (penalty). After Vranjes held on to Neymar inside the penalty box.
6-0. 88. Luis Suárez. Ran on to Messi pass and curled shot past Cuéllar in off post.

Yellow cards: Vranjes 26’, 84’, Luis Hernández 71’, Halilovic 84’ / red cards: Vranjes 84’.

Barcelona started their match against Sporting Gijón on Saturday evening knowing that their two rivals Atlético and Real Madrid had both won. In the end however they notched up a 6-0 victory to remain in top spot, with Luis Suárez scoring four for the second time in as many days to head up the top goalscorers chart. The Catalans almost went behind when Alex Menéndez got free on goal only to come up against Bravo, but a couple of minutes later Messi headed them into the lead after Cuéllar could only push out a high ball in to the area from Iniesta. The keeper did well to save from Messi a few minutes later, but the visitors also had their chances, and they felt unlucky not to have been given a penalty when Piqué stopped a Halilovic shot on the line with his upper arm on the stroke of half time. After the restart though it was one way traffic, and with just over an hour gone Luis Suárez got on the end of Iniesta’s cross to make it two. That deflated Abelardo’s team, and they gave away no less than three penalties in the next ten minutes, Luis Suárez converting the first two, and Neymar the third. And with two minutes to go Suárez wrote his name in the record books with his side’s fourth after Messi put him through, leaving the Asturians down in the bottom three for another week at least.