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Barca cruise as Messi leads from the front

Xinhua, March 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

FC Barcelona cruised to an easy 6-0 win at home to Getafe on Saturday afternoon to maintain their lead at the top of the BBVA Primera Liga.

Leo Messi led Barca from the start, providing a hat-trick of assists as well as scoring himself and even having the luxury of missing another penalty (Barca' s eighth of the season) in another dominant display.

Barca went into the game on the back of 37 games without defeat and with strikers Neymar, Luis Suarez and Leo Messi having scored 102 goals between them this season.

Getafe' s situation could not have contrasted more starkly as they arrived at the Camp Nou following 8 games without a win and with just one goal in their last seven matches.

Everything pointed to a comfortable win for Barca and even more so when they took the lead after 9 minutes when Jordi Alba' s low cross was deflected into his own net by Jun Rodriguez.

Messi then saw a penalty saved by Vicente Guaita just two minutes later, but quickly redeemed himself after 26 minutes when he set up Munir, in the side for Luis Suarez, to make it 2-0.

A neat pass from the Argentinean allowed Neymar to sidefoot home Barca' s third on the half hour, before Messi got his name on the scoresheet with a curling stop from outside the area which left Guaita helpless.

The song remained the same after the break as Messi clocked up his third assist of the game as he slotted through a slide-rule pass to allow Neymar to score his second goal of the match.

Arda Turan scored Barca' s sixth of the game with an overhead kick after Getafe failed to deal with a corner, which was the sign for Luis Enrique to rest Andres Iniesta and Gerard Pique and hand a league debut to Sergi Samper.

Getafe saw more of the ball in the last 20 minutes, but the game was as good as over and Barca can be content with perhaps their easiest 90 minutes of the season. Endit