Lionel Messi Scores his 500th Barcelona Goal at santiago-bernabeu

 

Lionel Messi blew the La Liga title race wide open as his 500th Barcelona goal stunned Real Madrid by giving the Catalans a 3-2 El Clasico win at the Bernabeu.

Messi — sporting a black eye and missing teeth following Marcelo’s first-half challenge on him — struck twice with his winner coming from the last kick of the match.
Ivan Rakitic had earlier given Barcelona a 2-1 lead, while Casemiro and James Rodriguez were on target for hosts Real, who had skipper Sergio Ramos sent off 13 minutes from time for a two-footed challenge on Messi.
Barcelona go top because they have a better head-to-head record than Real, although Zinedine Zidane’s men have a game in hand and therefore six matches left to play to the Catalans’ five.
In an end-to-end contest, Real took a 28th-minute lead when Ramos hooked his shot against the post and Casemiro slid the rebound into an empty net.
But Barcelona were level within five minutes when Rakitic’s pass picked out Messi and the Argentinian swerved past Dani Carvajal to finish unerringly past Keylor Navas.

Gareth Bale was forced off through injury on his 100th La Liga appearance, but that was a rare stop in the action with both Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Navas making excellent stops.
But Navas had no chance keeping out Rakitic’s 73rd-minute piledriver and it got worse for Real when Ramos received a Clasico red card for the second successive season.
The challenge on Messi did not make contact with the Barcelona player, but the two-footed tackle was wild and reckless and worthy of a straight red card.

Rodriguez, who had only been on the pitch three minutes, looked as if he had handed Real a point when he converted Marcelo’s cross from close range.
But then Messi met Jordi Alba’s cross from eight yards out to find the bottom right-hand corner of Navas’ net.