Lionel Messi netted his first hat-trick in 10 months as Barcelona swept aside struggling Granada 4-0 to climb above Atlético Madrid to the top of La Liga.
Arda Turan, making his league debut for the Spanish and European champions, set Messi up to score the opening goal from close range in the eighth minute at the Camp Nou.
The Argentina forward, who missed two months at the end of last year with a knee injury, made it 2-0 six minutes later from a clever Luis Suárez assist and a dominant Barça wasted several chances before half-time.
The visiting Granada side saw more of the ball at the start of the second half before Messi completed his treble in the 58th minute after Neymar’s shot came back off a post, ending his longest hat-trick drought in six years – his most recent had been in the 6-1 demolition of Rayo Vallecano in March 2015. Neymar added a fourth goal seven minutes from time when Messi, who was in an offside position, let the ball run through to the Brazilian and he lifted it over the Granada goalkeeper, Andrés Fernández, into the net.
The win extends Barcelona’s unbeaten run to 20 games in all competitions, with the 2-1 loss to Sevilla at the start of October remaining the Catalan club’s most recent defeat.
Barcelona, who have a game in hand over their main rivals, lead on 42 points, with Atlético a point behind in second ahead of their game at fifth‑placed Celta Vigo on Sunday.
Yesterday, FC Barcelona collected three points defeating -based football club  4–0 at  in Barcelona in a La Liga match and became league leaders again.

File photo of Lionel Messi, who scored the hat-trick
Barcelona had greater ball possession. The match saw five . Four away players and Aleix Vidal of Barcelona were yellow carded. More than thirty fouls were committed in the match. Lionel Messi scored the first goal of the match in the 8th minute, assisted by debutant . Minutes later, Uruguayan Luis Suárez assisted Messi and he netted the second goal in the 14th minute.  was the first player to be booked in the 29th minute. First half ended in 2–0 with one yellow card shown.


In the second half  and  of Granada were booked in 56th and 57th minute. In the next minute, Sergi Roberto assisted Brazilian Neymar whose try to net a goal was saved, but the ball deflected and Messi scored the third goal of the match, completing his hat-trick.

 was yellow carded at the 60th minute. Three minuted later, Aleix Vidal was yellow carded for a bad foul. Neymar, in the 83rd minute, scored the fourth goal of the match assisted by Suárez.

After the match, Barcelona manager Luis Enrique said "I'm very satisfied with how the team played. Everybody was focused from the beginning and the players knew how important it was to win these three points."

Also yesterday Zinedine Zidane, recently appointed Real Madrid's new manager, secured a 5–0 win against  with Welsh winger Gareth Bale scoring a hat-trick as well.


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CAT:Football (soccer)
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CAT:La Liga
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