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Barcelona went into the locker room tied with Real Betis after Antoine Griezmann had a penalty saved. Lionel Messi came on to start the second half and completely turned the game around, starting with a masterful dummy run to help Griezmann atone for his missed PK.
Messi scored two goals to help Barcelona eventually beat Real Betis 5-2 on Saturday, including his first goal that wasn’t from the penalty spot this season (though his first was another penalty kick). His fake to set up Griezmann’s goal was the moment that changed the match.
At the exact moment as CNN became the first major network to project Joe Biden as the winner of the U.S. presidential election, Jordi Alba sent in a low cross toward Messi in the box. Instead of smashing a shot toward goal as the entire country of Spain expected, Messi made a dummy run over the ball, setting up an easy tap-in for Griezmann.
Lionel Messi Dummy Run For Griezmann (At 3:40)
Messi went on to score two more goals, including one set up by a Sergi Roberto backheel. You can see the full highlights in the above video.
“The whole squad prefers it when Messi is on the pitch because he obviously gives you more options to win the game,” Jordi Alba said after the match. “Today he came on and changed the game, he is a different player to everybody else and we were a different team when he was on the pitch.
“The manager made a decision to not start him and in the second half he really helped us to go on and win the game. We all prefer it when he is on the pitch, we’re better with him around.”
Yeah, that checks out.
Saturday’s win was Barcelona’s first in LaLiga since Oct. 1, a run of two draws and two defeats, including that El Clásico loss on Oct. 24.
(Information from Reuters was used in this report.)
