Barcelona emerged victorious from their final league fixture of 2016 with a 4-1 triumph over crosstown rivals Espanyol on Sunday afternoon at the Camp Nou.
Luis Suarez scored a brace while Jordi Alba and Lionel Messi added scores in what was a solid performance from the Catalonians. Barcelona played some of their finest football in quite some time during a span during the second half when the very best of Messi and Andres Iniesta was on display. La Pulga, in particular, bewildered the Espanyol defence with a series of moves and dribbles that laid the foundation for the second and third Barcelona goals.
The result also lifts Barcelona to within three points of Real Madrid in the La Liga table, with Los Blancos owning a game in hand due to their involvement this week in the Club World Cup.
Once again Ivan Rakitic found himself on the outside looking in when it came to the starting XI, and this time it was Denis Suarez anointed as the third midfielder along with Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta, while the starter of the last several games, Andre Gomes, was left out of the matchday squad altogether. Otherwise, it was the usual cast of characters in Luis Enrique's line-up.
The fans inside the Camp Nou were witnesses to a rarity at the start, with Lionel Messi failing to finish off a counter-attack that started with Andres Iniesta feeding Luis Suarez a ball forward and ended with Neymar crossing for Messi, who fired just wide with the right side of the goal completely open.
Espanyol were not shy though and they attacked their city rivals using a combination of physicality and the aerial game. But they were slightly more vulnerable in the back than they had shown in previous matches and got exposed by Suarez who handed Barcelona a 1-0 lead in the 18th minute. Iniesta played a long ball up for the Uruguayan, who did very well to control it, and then get past Espanyol defender Diego Reyes before slotting in past goalkeeper Diego Lopez for the goal.
The chances for Barcelona on the counter-attack kept coming and Messi nearly doubled the lead at the half-hour mark but stroked a shot that deflected just wide after a pass back from Jordi Alba. Meanwhile, Espanyol stuck to their game plan and Javi Lopez had a decent look at an equaliser toward the end of the half, but fired high and wide of goal.
Barcelona hunted for a second goal to start the second half, and some fine work from Neymar and Messi set up Suarez with a chance, but the shot was deflected wide by Diego Lopez. On the play Lopez injured his knee, and so the former Real Madrid No. 1 had to be substituted off and was replaced by Roberto Jimenez.
Yet by the hour-mark the game was still very much in doubt. Espanyol's defence was firm and compact, and with big men up front like Felipe Caicedo and Papakouli Diop, the Barcelona defence had to heed the Pericos' runs from midfield.
However, for all their efforts, Espanyol had no match for the magic that Iniesta and Messi summoned that allowed Suarez to score Barcelona's second. It started with Iniesta doing superbly to avoid to Espanyol players before dishing off to Messi. From there La Pulga took over, slaloming improbably past four Espanyol players before firing at goal. Roberto blocked the shot but Suarez was there to sweep in the rebound to extend Barcelona's lead to 2-0.
There was more brilliance from Messi to come. Moments after Suarez's second goal, Messi again made the Espanyol defence look like Swiss cheese and dribbled past three players before the ball fell for Alba to fire in past Roberto for a 3-0 lead. In a span of two minutes, a tight one-goal affair ballooned into a three-goal romp thanks in part to the genius playmaking of Iniesta and Messi.
Espanyol did not throw in the towel though, and David Lopez did nicely to finish off a run into the Barcelona area that cut the score to 3-1 and allowed the visitors to salvage something from the affair.
The only real question to answer in the final 10 minutes was whether Messi would get a goal for himself, and it came a minute from time when he neatly finished off a 1-2 combination with Suarez by slipping a shot past Roberto off a chip from the Uruguayan to complete a stellar night.
Barcelona will wrap up their 2016 on Wednesday at home with the second leg of the Copa del Rey Round of 32 tie versus Hercules.