Barcelona star Lionel Messi reveals the secret behind his free-kick “ritual”

Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi has revealed the secrets behind his sensational free-kicks. 

The iconic forward helped his side earn a 4-0 victory over Espanyol on Saturday with an exceptional set piece effort to open the scoring and another in the second half.

Messi, 31, was modest about his free-kick wizardry and confessed that he was lucky to score both of them on Saturday evening.

“With my free kicks, I try to follow a ritual and always try to repeat it when it goes well. I was right on both occasions, Messi told Sport.

“Sometimes it doesn’t come off and sometimes it does. I’m happy to have scored, but what matters to me is that the team win.

“I didn’t think about a hat-trick of free kicks. What’s important to me is that we stay ahead of our rivals Sevilla and Atletico.

Goals from Luis Suarez and Moussa Dembele added to Espanyol’s woes and secured the Catalan giants’ place at the top of the La Liga table with 31 points.

Barca have already qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League and will host Spurs in their Group B finale on Tuesday night.

Messi’s free-kick brilliance

Lionel Messi’s game by numbers vs. Espanyol:

77 touches
44 passes
8 take ons completed
5 shots
5 chances created
4 shots on target
2 direct free-kicks scored
1 tackle
1 assist

Mesmerising performance. pic.twitter.com/IawYqWPLiK

— Squawka Football (@Squawka) December 8, 2018

Messi was on fire on Saturday night. His first goal of the night came from the Argentine’s sublimely struck free-kick, which curled beautifully past a helpless Diego López into the top right corner of the net.

He then had a hand in Barca’s second goal when he dribbled past multiple floundering Espanyol defenders to set-up Dembele.

Not to be outdone by himself, the Argentina international followed up his first free-kick with a second effort from over 25 yards out which resulted in an explosion of adulation online.

Messi has performed so many spectacular feats over his glittering career that many have become anaesthetised to his genius, but the record he broke last night must have raised the most rigid of eyebrows.

The two free-kick goals he scored means the Argentine has put away more free-kicks over the last four La Liga seasons (15) than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues. Just so we’re clear, that’s more than any other team, not player, but team. Got it? good!

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