Barcelona‘s Lionel Messi celebrates scoring the opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Deportivo Coruna at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2015.
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“The end is unexplainable, we lost control when we needed it and facilitated the opposition”, he told Canal Plus. Despite the result, the Catalans are still on top of La Liga table with 34 points, 2 points above Atletico and 4 points ahead of Real Madrid. Real Madrid, which plays at fifth-place Villarreal, is five points behind Barcelona.
European champions Barcelona will have to do without the injured Neymar for their final La Liga game before Christmas at home to Deportivo La Coruna before jetting off to the Club World Cup (CWC) in Japan. “These things happen, we analyze it so that it doesn’t happen again”.
Concerns were raised over a potential hamstring injury for the Argentina captain after he was seen clutching the back of his leg during Barca’s 1-1 Champions League draw with Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday.
Messi looked back to his best after a few rusty performances on his return from a two-month knee ligament injury and he almost teed up Andres Iniesta with a sensational through ball that the Spanish worldwide just couldn’t stretch to turn home.
Germán Lux came to the visitors’ rescue in the 30th minute, as the Deportivo shot-stopper pulled off a fine finger-tip save to keep out Lionel Messi’s curling effort.
The Argentine curled the ball into the top corner of the goal from 25 metres to break the resistance of a well organised Deportivo after 38 minutes.
However, Deportivo managed to level matters in the 86th minute, as Lucas Perez did well to pick out Alejandro Garcia, who smashed home from close range.
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However, Perez was not to be denied his 11th goal of the season moments later as he outmuscled Jeremy Mathieu to slot home.
