{"id":32374,"date":"2021-01-08T20:25:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T18:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/zimbabwe\/?p=32374"},"modified":"2021-01-08T18:31:14","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T16:31:14","slug":"messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders","title":{"rendered":"Messi Brace Helps Barca Cut Gap Behind La Liga Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/zimbabwe\">Zimbabwe<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Lionel Messi Wednesday scored a brace to help Barcelona reduce the gap behind La Liga leaders, Atletico Madrid to seven (7) points giving Barca manager Ronald Koeman hope that they can still win the league this season.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona have two games in hand and are likely to be among title contenders considering their skipper, Lionel Messi, is regaining his form.<\/p>\n<p>Barca had the worst start to the season, in 33-years, to the chagrin of Catalonia fans.<\/p>\n<p>Although Koeman admitted last week it would be \u201cvery difficult\u201d to close the gap, he was more optimistic after the 3-2 victory against Athletic Bilbao at San Mames. He said:<\/p>\n<p>There is always a chance. The season is very long and you can have ups and downs. It may be that one team that is doing very well will later find it difficult.<\/p>\n<p>The team is growing, playing with more confidence. Sometimes we look close to our best.<\/p>\n<p>Barca trailed to an early (3rd minute) Inaki Williams strike but responded with a slick attacking performance that had Messi at the heart of it.<\/p>\n<p>It was Messi\u2019s cross that led to Pedri\u2019s equaliser and then the Argentinian could have had a hat-trick, only for VAR and the woodwork to intervene.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Messi\u2019s future at Barca still remains uncertain after he recently said he will make a decision at the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Before the start od the current season, Messi indicated his desire to leave the club citing lack of a long-term plan at the club.<\/p>\n<p><b>More: AFP<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. Lionel Messi Wednesday scored a brace to help Barcelona reduce the gap behind La Liga leaders, Atletico Madrid to seven (7) points giving Barca manager Ronald Koeman hope that they can still win the league this season. Barcelona have two games in hand and are likely to be among title contenders considering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":32373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35,16,15],"tags":[1493,2189,2416,2238,2237,19],"class_list":["post-32374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-fc-barcelona","tag-lionel-messi","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Messi Brace Helps Barca Cut Gap Behind La Liga Leaders - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lionel Messi Wednesday scored a brace to help Barcelona reduce the gap behind La Liga leaders, Atletico Madrid to seven ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Messi Brace Helps Barca Cut Gap Behind La Liga Leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lionel Messi Wednesday scored a brace to help Barcelona reduce the gap behind La Liga leaders, Atletico Madrid to seven ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"zimbabwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-08T18:25:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2021\/01\/img-5ff888b7957e4.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Messi Brace Helps Barca Cut Gap Behind La Liga Leaders\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-08T18:25:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders\"},\"wordCount\":269,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2021\/01\/img-5ff888b7957e4.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Zimbabwe\",\"Atletico Madrid\",\"FC Barcelona\",\"Lionel Messi\",\"Zimbabwe\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/messi-brace-helps-barca-cut-gap-behind-la-liga-leaders\",\"name\":\"Messi Brace Helps Barca Cut Gap Behind La Liga Leaders - 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