{"id":12985,"date":"2020-12-23T08:26:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T09:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=12985"},"modified":"2020-12-23T09:56:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T09:56:16","slug":"messi-surpasses-pele-and-leads-barca-to-victory-at-valladolid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=12985","title":{"rendered":"Messi surpasses Pele and leads Barca to victory at Valladolid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Valladolid:\u00a0Barcelona turned on the style to thrash Real Valladolid 3-0 away in La Liga on Tuesday as Lionel Messi scored his 644th goal to surpass Pele as the all-time record scorer for a single club.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Messi also finally got his first assist of the season when he picked out defender Clement Lenglet with a splendid cross and the Frenchman rose to head Barca in front after 21 minutes.<\/p>\n

The Argentine also had a hand in the visitors\u2019 second goal, laying on a pass for right back Sergino Dest to latch on to down the right flank and play a cross into the path of Martin Braithwaite, who slid in to score in the 35th minute.<\/p>\n

Messi capped a brilliant individual display with a splendid goal midway through the second half, running in behind to meet a pass from teenager Pedri and slotting into the far bottom corner to eclipse Pele\u2019s long-standing scoring mark for Santos.<\/p>\n

It was also an outstanding team display from Ronald Koeman\u2019s side, who responded to Saturday\u2019s disappointing 2-2 home draw against Valencia by earning their first away league win since beating Celta Vigo on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n

Barca remain fifth in the standings, moving on to 24 points after 14 games. Atletico Madrid are top with 32 points from 13 games after a 2-0 win at Real Sociedad on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was a very complete performance. We needed to win this game and we did that while showing some real quality,\u201d said Barca scorer Lenglet.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday our tactics worked well and we\u2019re very happy. Our full backs were able to play high up the pitch and it was a consistent performance overall, while we didn\u2019t let our opponents have too many chances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messi, who remarked earlier this week that he sometimes struggled to get motivated for games in the absence of fans, looked up for the match from the first whistle.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old nearly gave Barca an early lead when he rattled a shot towards the top corner only to be thwarted by a save from keeper Jordi Masip.<\/p>\n

He dictated Barca\u2019s play throughout the game with some brilliant passing and movement, while he almost scored a second goal in added time when he raced through on goal but fired against the post from a tight angle.<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0Messi equals Pele\u2019s record of 643 goals for a single club<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valladolid:\u00a0Barcelona turned on the style to thrash Real Valladolid 3-0 away in La Liga on Tuesday as Lionel Messi scored his 644th goal to surpass […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12987,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12985\/revisions\/12987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}