It took FC Barcelona 358 days to lose their record and 54 seconds to get it back again. Saturday night, week 30 in La Liga and Sevilla were 2-0 up at the Sánchez Pizjuán, but it could have been three, four or five. They had overrun their opponents and although they were exhausted they didn’t have long to hang on now. On the touchline, the fourth official was fiddling with the board; high above him, the scoreboard crept beyond 87 minutes, and there would only be two more added. Alongside the time were two names: goalscorers Franco Vázquez and Luis Muriel. Easter is special in Sevilla, alright. There, at last, Barcelona were defeated; unbeaten in the league since last April, 36 games ago, they were about to be stopped by the same side that eventually stopped Real Sociedad’s record-breaking team in May 1980 – only Barcelona were falling two games earlier.

It had to happen sometime. As it turned out, it will have to happen some other time, although now they’re asking: why does it have to happen at all? After all, if it didn’t happen this time … “We want the perfect season,” Ivan Rakitic said afterwards, disbelief in the air, the thought forming that they could even become the first team to go an entire league without losing. As for Sevilla, this was hard to take. “I won’t sleep tonight,” said manager Vincenzo Montella. “If the game had finished five minutes earlier, we would have won.” Half that would have done it. Half decent finishing would have done it, too. “Frustrating,” Muriel called it. Sevilla had 21 shots, eight of them his. As the game went into the 88th minute, there was time for two more, both of them Barcelona’s and both of them goals.

Brutal Bayern Munich made to wait for their title … but not for long | Andy Brassell Read more

The clock showed 87.18 when Luis Suárez produced an acrobatic finish to make it 2-1 to Sevilla. He turned and raced towards the halfway line pumping his fist while Gerard Piqué ran into the net to collect the ball. Less than a minute later, they were all running into the arms of Leo Messi. His turn to carry them, again. On the left, Phillipe Coutinho had given the ball to Jordi Alba, who returned it. Coutinho pulled it back just outside the area and there both Suárezs let it go, Luis stepping over it, Denis getting out the way. Messi, dashing into his space for his shot, side-footed it first time, bending it in at the near post just past Sergio Rico. The time was 88.12. Two down 54 seconds earlier, suddenly, somehow, Barcelona were level.

“Most people thought it was over, but we showed it wasn’t,” Suárez said. “We showed that we’re strong.”

This was the ninth match in which Barcelona had been behind in the league this season and they haven’t lost any of them. There was something in the headline in AS that said simply “he did it again”, just as there was something in the opening line of José María Rodríguez’s match report in Marca, which read “it’s impossible not to believe in Messi” and in El Mundo Deportivo’s headline “another miracle from Messi”, or AS’s identical offering too. It is also true that when Messi came here in November 2016 he was ludicrously good; that day, Sevilla could have beaten Barcelona but not him. So maybe it should not have been such a surprise. Yet this time it really did look all over. Even Messi’s moment seemed to have gone.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sevilla’s French defender Clement Lenglet sits on the field at the end of the match. Photograph: Cristina Quicler/AFP/Getty Images

When Muriel scored Sevilla’s second, he kneeled in the corner, fingers pointing to the sky. Not far away, Messi looked at him, a substitute standing on the touchline. It would be nice to be able to say that you could see a look in his eye, a determination, but you couldn’t really. Earlier on, cameras had caught him on the bench yawning. Now he didn’t say anything, barely reacted, just glanced briefly at the scoreboard. Fifty minutes gone and Barcelona were 2-0 down. He had missed his country’s humiliation against Spain through injury; now he was watching his club get beaten too. Sevilla pressed high, suffocating Barcelona, going virtually man for man all over the pitch, and Barça couldn’t find a way out. They needed Messi: he would have half an hour to sort this out.

He was still standing there at the side when Sevilla’s Jesús Navas raced through, all alone, on 54 minutes. If Navas had scored then, maybe Messi would have sat down again, the risk pointless – although Ernesto Valverde insisted the plan was always for him to get some minutes – but Navas seemed gripped by fear, turned back on himself, tied himself in knots, and was stopped by Ter Stegen. The rebound fell to Vázquez, but he shot wide. It was still only two, still semi-plausible, and with 58 minutes gone, Messi ambled on. Within two minutes, he had helped create two chances, one on each side. Immediately, it felt different. But it didn’t last long. And that, it seemed, was that. Time slipped away, now more plausible. He’d scored nine in 13 games in which he had come on as a sub but Barcelona needed two and, with him on, they were still being overrun.

Barcelona went forward, sure, but every time they did they were exposed. Every ball was a break, the game stretched, huge spaces everywhere. Sevilla kept on coming, running themselves into the ground; the surprise was that the third goal didn’t come as well. Piqué cleared off the line from Éver Banega. Muriel hit the side netting to the left, then to the right. Miguel Layún had one, then another. The chances could hardly be clearer. At the other end, Messi hit the side-netting on 85 and Rakitic hit the post on 86, which felt like the last chance. At the start of February, six European first division teams were unbeaten. By this weekend, only two were left. On Saturday Lincoln Red Imps in Gibraltar were defeated at the Victoria stadium, tucked in alongside the runway at the foot of the rock. At 10.29pm on Saturday, Barcelona were joining them – but then it happened, in 54 seconds. Now they’re one off equalling Spain’s all-time unbeaten record.

Serie A title battle may have turned on a clerical error over Matteo Politano | Paolo Bandini Read more

Never knowingly accused of good taste, Sport had begun holy week by declaring “D10S [God] will be in Seville”, where celebrations are the most famous and where, according to the match report in another paper, the aroma of incense and orange blossom was strong – which it must have been for them to smell it from over 500km away. By Easter Sunday, the headlines were inevitable. “The leader is resurrected by Messi; he performs miracles,” said Marca. “Decisive, lethal, wonderful, clairvoyant, proud, brutal; he resurrected a dead team,” said AS. El Mundo Deportivo was talking about “a via crucis and a resurrection.” Sport said Sevilla’s “procession” was such that beneath the two-tonne floats, legs were trembling, but then came “divine intervention”, “the miracle of the fish and the loaves”, and then “he appeared, walking on water to end the via crucis and secure a heavenly point.” Barcelona rose again.



“You saw what happened yesterday,” Atlético manager Diego Simeone said the following night. “Sixty minutes without Messi, they lose 2-0; 30 minutes with Messi, they win 2-0. You saw it. It’s clearly visible just how decisive Messi is in this competition.”

Talking points

• Resurrección Sunday saw victories for the teams at the bottom of the second division and the first division, and endless Easter puns. Alas, almost 20 years on this column is still waiting for a goalkeeper called Jesús and Sunday didn’t see much from Koke, who played in a slightly odd left-sided attacking role against Deportivo as Atlético produced another 1-0 win – their ninth this season. Koke’s real name, for those who don’t know, is Jorge Resurrección.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Atlético Madrid’s Kevin Gameiro celebrates scoring alongside Saul Niguez and Koke. Photograph: Javier Barbancho/Reuters

• Standing at the side of the pitch at the Rosaleda this week, someone at Málaga had a theory: we’ll start winning when we know we’re down. The idea was that, released of tension, once they let go, they’ll actually be able to play. Maybe they had already given up, then? And maybe they gave up just in time to not have to give up entirely? “Despite what the table says, we’re not a disaster”, manager José González had said in the buildup and Sunday, for once, suggested he might have half a point – even if it is almost certainly too late now. Bottom, without a win in 14, 11 of which were defeats, they beat Villarreal. “After the game, I caught one of them looking at the table,” González grinned. “I said: ‘Oh, doing the maths are you?’ He said: ‘We can do this’.” Eleven points from safety, they probably still can’t, but …

Lionel Messi saves Barcelona unbeaten run with late strike at Sevilla Read more

• Next week Málaga play fellow relegation candidates Deportivo, whose manager Clarence Seedorf says he won’t give up as long as it’s “mathematically possible”. Bigger still, Levante face Las Palmas. “If we don’t win, it’s virtually over,” Paco Jémez admits. Levante, plummeting towards the drop zone, have recovered. This weekend they were not only the first visiting team to get a point from Montilivi in seven weeks, they also were the first to even score there in that time, a José Morales equaliser levelling Álex Granell’s gorgeous goal. Levante have seven from nine points under new manager Paco López. They had six from 45 under Juan Muñiz. “They’re one of the best teams to come here,” said Pablo Machín, the Girona coach.

• “I don’t read anything; I retreat into my cell,” Athletic’s under-pressure, soon to be gone manager Cuco Ziganda said, after Celta got a late but deserved equaliser at San Mamés.

• Asked what Rodrigo’s secret is, Valencia manager Marcelino said: “the thing is, he’s very good.”

• Gareth Bale scored on Gran Canaria. Twice.



• Fuerza Pelayo