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FC Barcelona held Valencia at Camp Nou as Lionel Messi scored two goals on Saturday, 2nd January. Valencia's striking force emerged as one of the major improvements from this encounter on the away soil.
Lionel Messi emerged as the saviour for the Catalan Giants when the likes of Luis Suarez, Philippe Coutinho, and Ivan Rakitic started for FC Barcelona.
Kevin Gameiro made his first mark on the game as he broke the deadlock at the 24th minute of the match. Valencia kept the pressure on the Barcelona defence as Dani Parejo's sweetly-taken penalty helped Valencia to extend their lead. Messi reduced the deficit as he converted a penalty at the 39th minute of the game.
In the second half, Barcelona started to play their destructive football. It was Messi who made it 2-2 for Barca at the 64th minute of the match. This time, Arturo Vidal was the through ball provider.
Valencia tried to provide pressure but the Barcelona defence was not ready to gamble for the third time. Both teams played good football as they both garnered 1 point.
Lionel Messi was awarded the man of the match following his two brilliant goals in front of their home fans. Barcelona had a 69% ball position throughout the whole match. They hit 8 shots on the goal out of their 20 attempts. On the other hand, 14 shots were taken by Valencia's men while kept 7 shots on target. Barcelona is 6 points behind Atletico Madrid, whereas the points difference between Barca and Real is eleven points.
After this match, Barcelona holds their top position in the La Liga points table. They have garnered 50 points from 22 matches. Ill-fated Valencia also holds the 7th place as they have bagged 30 points from the same number of games.
Barcelona has some good games in the next few fixtures as they will face Real Madrid in Copa Del Rey semi-final. They also have an away match against Athletic Bilbao with the away journey to Lyon in UEFA Champions League round of 16.
Here are a few tweets as Messi provided another exceptional performance.
