Messi joins 100 club as Barca shine
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Lionel Messi scored his 100th Barcelona goal on Saturday as the Spanish champions thumped Sevilla 4-0 at Nou Camp to go five points clear of Real Madrid.
Messi, 22, scored twice in the final five minutes to make it five goals in his past two matches and take his career total to 101, becoming the youngest player in the club's illustrious history to reach the landmark.
An own goal from Julien Escude and a Pedro Rodriguez strike capped a miserable second half for Sevilla who paid a heavy price for knocking Barcelona out of the Kings Cup in midweek.
Real had crashed to their third defeat of the season with a 1-0 loss at Athletic Bilbao earlier on Saturday and Barca made them pay for the slip-up, notching their first home win of the year to open up a five-point cushion.
"There is the whole second half of the season to go so we shouldn't get too complacent," said Messi, who leads the goalscoring charts with 14 goals.
It was the third meeting between Barca and Sevilla in 11 days and after losing out in the Cup, Barcelona set the score straight as Sevilla fell to a fourth consecutive league defeat and now languish in sixth.
Bilbao are now level on points with Sevilla after their battling 1-0 win over Real at San Mames.
Spanish international forward Fernando Llorente headed the decisive goal after just two minutes and Bilbao survived an onslaught - with Karim Benzema, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo all going close - to hold on for an historic win.
"We created the chances to get a better result and there was almost only one team on the pitch," said Real coach Manuel Pellegrini.
"However, you have to have some luck to convert these chances. When you lose you have obviously not done something right.
"There is a long way to go in the league with more than half of it remaining. Now it is important we beat Malaga at home (in the next league match)."
Zlatan Ibrahimovic returned from suspension for Barcelona and should have scored in the sixth minute but arrived too early to convert Thierry Henry's cross.
Henry almost scored himself on 12 minutes but Andres Palop rushed out to block the French striker's poked effort.
Palop also tipped over a Messi deflected shot before halftime.
Barca got the early breakthrough with Gerard Pique's shot deflected in off Escude.
For the subsequent quarter hour Barca put their foot down as Palop made three saves to deny Messi and Henry while Ibrahimovic had a header ruled out for offside.
A second goal was coming and arrived 20 minutes from time with Xavi threading an incredible pass to subtitute Pedro who lobbed Palop and the goal had the whole crowd on their feet applauding.
Messi scored five minutes from time and added his second in stoppage time.
The result was bad news for Real whose away form is threatening to shatter their title bid.
Real dropped two points in their last away match with a 0-0 draw at Osasuna and fired blanks again at Bilbao.
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