Four days after scoring five times in a Champions League record Lionel Messi has added two more goals to reach 50 for the second straight season and lead Barcelona to a 2-0 win at Racing Santander in La Liga.
Messi scored five in Barcelona's 7-1 win against Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday and his double on Sunday further enabled him to close to within five goals of matching César Rodríguez's all-time club record of 235.
"Messi stands out from every other player in the world," the Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fábregas said. "It is a pleasure to play with him and to have him on the same team because he gives you that extra dose of confidence that every champion needs."
Barcelona's fourth straight victory means they are back to 10 points behind the runaway leaders, Real Madrid, who beat Real Betis 3-2 on Saturday, but with only 12 rounds to play the defending champions' chances of catching their rivals are dwindling.
Messi broke through Racing's 10-man defence in the 29th minute, and the three-time Fifa World Player of the Year added a penalty in the 56th as Barcelona enjoyed a rare easy win away from Camp Nou.
Barcelona's coach, Pep Guardiola, however, said his team had been put to the test. "We had to make a big effort," Guardiola said. "We played well on a pitch that didn't favour passing the ball. They packed in their defence and that is never easy."
The Racing coach, Alvaro Cervera, who became the troubled club's third coach of the season on Friday, could do little but watch as Barcelona kept the relegation-threatened side winless for their eighth straight week.
Cervera made Racing's strategy clear from the start. While some teams have had limited success pressing Barcelona, the former Racing and Spain player opted for his side to sit back and try to resist their opponents' precision passing game.
But the hosts' defensive stance led to zero shots on goal and did not stop Messi from taking his league goal tally to 30 – two behind Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo at the top of the list.
"Entering the game 13 points behind [Madrid], we couldn't afford a slip," Guardiola said. "We imagined they could play one way or the other but we had to come out looking for the win from the first minute."
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