With his hat-trick over Celtic on Tuesday, Lionel Messi now has six Champion League hat-tricks to his name – one more than his rival Cristiano Ronaldo.
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The Spanish champions were fined 150,000 euros ($170,000) by UEFA because of the flags during last season’s competition.
The 7-0 victory surpassed Barcelona’s biggest win in the Champions League to date, a 7-1 defeat of Bayer Leverkusen in 2012.
The Hoops were humbled in Camp Nou on their return to the Champions League in the Group C opener courtesy of the irrepressible trident of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar.
Messi had started Saturday’s shock 2-1 defeat to Alaves on the bench due to the after-effects of a minor groin injury, but took just three minutes to make his presence felt with a rising drive into the top corner from Neymar’s lovely through ball.
Messi’s the best player in the world, at whatever position he plays.
Celtic, who are now atop the Scottish Premiership table with 12 points from four games, will next play Inverness CT on Sunday.
Celtic captain Scott Brown blasted his, and his team-mates’, second-half performance as “unacceptable” in their 7-0 thumping at the hands of Barcelona. “To lose five goals in 45 minutes is not acceptable”.
“There can be no embarassment because they do that to better teams than ourselves”, said Rodgers. Messi did the rest by sizing up Dorus de Vries before blasting a left-footed shot past the Celtic keeper.
Barcelona were in total control, but Celtic should have been level after 24 minutes when goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen brought down Moussa Dembele who broke into the box.
“If you get a penalty and get the score to 1-1, it makes it a little nervy – especially after them losing here at the weekend”. But the game was called-off as they were not satisfied that the ball would roll sufficiently.
Goal No. 3 came in the 50th when Neymar curled a free kick over the wall.
“If he plays as a No.9, No.8 or No.6, he’s the best No.9, No.8 or No.6 in the world”.
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“We practically didn’t commit any mistakes”, he added.
