Lionel Messi’s free-kick sends Barcelona eight points clear of Atlético Madrid

Lionel Messi’s 600th goal carried Barcelona closer to the league title, his eighth at the club. As the ball hit the net, the Camp Nou chanted his name. It was early still and Atlético Madrid refused to relinquish their challenge without a fight, but he had done it again. By the end, there was a huge roar here: another big night had the No 10’s signature scrawled across it. “If Messi had been wearing an Atlético shirt, we would have won,” Diego Simeone, the Atlético manager, said. “There’s no one like him in the world. I don’t know what would have happened [if he’d been on the other team], nor do I want to imagine it,” Ernesto Valverde, the Barcelona manager, said. A single goal was enough but what a goal it was; a third free-kick in three days.

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