Lionel Messi stars in Barcelona's 5-1 win over Panathinaikos

Updated on: 15 September,2010 09:10 AM IST |
AFP |

Barcelona put their weekend humiliation at the hands of Hercules behind them with two-goal Lionel Messi inspiring a 5-1 Champions League rout of Panathinaikos yesterday in their Group D opener.

Barcelona put their weekend humiliation at the hands of Hercules behind them with two-goal Lionel Messi inspiring a 5-1 Champions League rout of Panathinaikos yesterday in their Group D opener.

Pedro Rodriguez and Brazilian Dani Alves scored late goals to complete the rout while Messi came agonisingly close to a hat-trick missing a penalty and hitting both posts in the second half.

It was a big win from the 2009 champions as they gave the perfect reply to Saturday's painful 2-0 league defeat to promoted Hercules at Camp Nou.

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola made five changes to the team that crashed to the Hercules with Spanish World Cup winning quartet Xavi, Sergi Busquets, Pedro and Carles Puyol coming in.

Messi saw a header saved in the second minute and then set up the next move sliding a brilliant pass to Andres Iniesta who laid the ball off for Xavi metres from goal.

Xavi seemed certain to score but his shot with the outside of his right foot was too close to goalkeeper Alexandros Tzorvas who parried well.

The Greek visitors were hanging on but somehow conjured up a goal with their first attack of the match on 20 minutes.

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