It only took 20 minutes for Barcelona to crush any remote hope that BATE Borisov had in this mismatch. After drawing against AC Milan at home, Barcelona took it out on the team from Belarus by scoring 5 goals, taking possession of the ball in the first minute and only returning it back to the referee at half-time and at the end of the game.
BATE Borisov vs FC Barcelona: Another Manita for FC Barcelona
Against an ultra-rienforced BATE defence, Barcelona had no trouble generating offence even with their opponents entrenched 20 meters from their own goal. BATE Borisov had quantity but no quality to match as seen by Aliaksandr Valadzko’s own goal (0-1 at the 19th minute), which came under intense pressure by Lionel Messi. Pedro followed through with a header to make it 0-2 in the 22nd minute.
Things only got worse from there as Messi scored 38 minute minutes in with a trivial-looking header that BATE goalkeeper Aleksandr Gutor inexplicably let get by him to make the gap too big to recover from. Then it was time to re-write the record books as Barca continued to attack and had fun in the process - Messi got his a double with a great shot from just outside the box shortly after the second half began
With 40 goals (39 in Champions League and 1 in the SuperCup), Messi has now dethroned Hernan Crespo as the highest Argentine goal scorer in Champions League history. A second record was broken by Messi, again, as the little Argentine tallied his 193rd and 194th goals as a Blaugrana, tied with Barcelona legend Ladislao Kubala.
A third record was broken in Belarus by the Catalan club by scoring 1 goal in 23 consecutive Champions League games, 1 more game than ex-record holder Bayern Munich. Barca has more than a fair chance of keeping the streak alive as their next game will be against Viktoria Plzen. As for the 5th goal, David Villa’s goal was another testament of the gap between both teams.
A night for the record books... a night for La Manita
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