“I will give you an anecdote: at Manchester I didn’t speak with [Ryan] Giggs or [Paul] Scholes, but we still won the Champions League”, said Ronaldo on the eve of Wednesday’s first leg clash at the Stadio Olimpico.
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“If things don’t turn out well on Saturday it won’t be because we were thinking of Arsenal, it will be because we didn’t do certain things or because the other team did things well”.
His second goal against Sporting Gijon is Barcelona’s 10,000th goal ever.
However, in a match dominated by the European champions, it was the hosts who had the first clear opening as Alex Menendez shot just wide from Barca loanee Alen Halilovic’s through ball.
Messi had caused a worldwide sensation by passing a spot-kick into Suarez’s path to complete his hat-trick in the 6-1 rout of Celta Vigo on Sunday.
172 of Messi’s 301 goals have been scored at Camp Nou, and the Argentina captain appears to prefer the second half to the first – with 177 of his strikes coming after the interval.
Gijon responded well and Carlos Castro finished off a flowing counter attack to level the scores just two minutes later.
Barca promptly responded, though, as Suarez showed great strength to hold the ball up and then lay it off for Messi to fire into the roof of the net with the outside of his left foot. In fact, Barca had something far more memorable up their sleeves, with Suarez rolling in Messi’s impudent pass to make it 4-1.
Suarez missed a chance to add to his league-leading 24 goals when his 62nd-minute penalty was saved by Sporting goalkeeper Ivan Cuellar, but the Uruguay striker sealed the victory five minutes later after a nice move inside the area.
It was unlikely the play would count as a missed penalty for Messi.
Messi surpassed the 300-goal mark with his double at El Molinon and Luis Enrique was delighted with the way his side coped against Abelardo’s spirited outfit as the league season enters its final third.
“It’s a privilege to be able to count on Leo”, Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said. Although his apparent desire to help Suarez increase his personal stats has been made clearer in recent weeks, it is reassuring to see that his own goal-scoring hunger remains intact despite having already provided a remarkable 13 assists this season.
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Cuellar blotted his copybook by bringing down Suarez in the 61st minute to concede a penalty but made amends with a fine save. “It will be hard to take the ball off them and it will be tough, but if anyone has demonstrated they are capable of playing every three days, it is us”.
