Messi hits hat-trick as Barca put five past Mallorca

MADRID: Lionel Messi broke yet another record by hitting his 35th La Liga hat-trick on Saturday as Barcelona thrashed Real Mallorca 5-2 to keep pace with Real Madrid at the top of the table.

A trio of vintage Messi finishes contributed to five stunning Barca goals, the best of them arguably belonging to Luis Suarez, whose brilliant backheel capped a free-flowing move, involving seven different players.

The efforts of Messi and Suarez overshadowed Antoine Griezmann’s opener but that was impressive too, the Frenchman applying a sumptuous chip after being assisted by his own goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

An exhibition of creativity at Camp Nou allowed for the occasional lapse in defence and Mallorca’s Ante Budimir twice reduced the deficit to 2-1 and 4-2, even if a comeback never looked likely.

Instead, Messi underlined his status as the world’s finest footballer with another sublime performance, instant evidence for why he was presented with his latest Ballon d’Or trophy on the pitch before kick-off.

For his first goal, Messi cut in from the right and bent the ball into the top left-hand corner and his second was almost a carbon copy, Suarez setting it back for his partner to hit the same spot.

In between, Budimir latched onto an excellent reverse pass by Salva Sevilla to briefly give Mallorca hope after Griezmann had opened the scoring, racing onto Ter Stegen’s through ball and scooping it over Manolo Reina.

Suarez hit the post and then stumbled after skipping around Reina but he made up for both two minutes before half-time with arguably the goal of the night.

Ten passes, involving seven different players, ended with Suarez with his back to goal and somehow the Uruguayan dug out a superb shot with the back of his foot that span into the far corner. Frenkie de Jong had been instrumental in the build-up. Budimir capitalised on a rare Ter Stegen error to head in before Messi completed his hat-trick with seven minutes left.