{"id":406504,"date":"2018-03-05T09:04:34","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T09:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=406504"},"modified":"2018-03-05T09:04:34","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T09:04:34","slug":"messi-scores-600th-goal-barcelona-win-atletico-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=406504","title":{"rendered":"Messi scores 600th goal in Barcelona win over Atletico Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi\u2019s 600th career goal maintained Barcelona\u2019s unbeaten record in La Liga to open up an eight-point lead over opponents Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n

Messi\u2019s superb first-half free-kick from 25 yards into the top corner took his club tally to 539 goals and he also has 61 for Argentina.<\/p>\n

Luis Suarez could have added a second but his chip sailed narrowly wide.<\/p>\n

Substitute Kevin Gameiro thought he had levelled for Atletico late on, but the goal was ruled out for offside<\/p>\n

Diego Costa provided the knock down for Gameiro\u2019s close-range finish, but the former Chelsea striker was adjudged to be in an offside position.<\/p>\n

\"Lionel
Messi\u2019s impressive stats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The visitors were second best for large periods in the match and had just one effort on target, a looping Saul Niguez header that was comfortable for goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen to deal with.<\/p>\n

In the context of the season, this was a huge victory for Ernesto Valverde\u2019s side against their nearest title rivals, as they close in on their ninth title triumph in 14 seasons with 11 games left to play.<\/p>\n

They remain on course to secure a treble of trophies, with their Champions League last-16 second-leg against Chelsea taking place on 14 March and the Spanish Cup final against Sevilla next month.<\/p>\n

Record goalscorer Messi made the difference again, taking his tally to 28 for the season and Barcelona\u2019s 100th in all competitions this season.<\/p>\n

They could have had more but the impressive Philippe Coutinho had a couple of efforts kept out by Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak, while Suarez saw a close-range strike chalked off for offside.<\/p>\n

The only blemish for Barca saw skipper Andres Iniesta hobble off in the first half with the club saying he suffered a hamstring injury that requires tests to see how long he will be out for with the Champions League second leg against Chelsea on 14 March.<\/p>\n

Barcelona travel to Malaga in their next league game on Saturday (kick-off 19:45 GMT)<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi\u2019s 600th career goal maintained Barcelona\u2019s unbeaten record in La Liga to open up an eight-point lead over opponents Atletico Madrid. Messi\u2019s superb first-half free-kick from 25 yards into the top corner took his club tally to 539 goals and he also has 61 for Argentina. Luis Suarez could have added a second but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":406505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[4717,319,10196],"class_list":["post-406504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-barcelona","tag-la-liga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/406505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}