{"id":1632,"date":"2014-02-09T23:29:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T23:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2014-02-09T23:29:22","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T23:29:22","slug":"messis-brace-take-barca-back-to-the-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/messis-brace-take-barca-back-to-the-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi&#8217;s Brace Take Barca Back To The Top"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Lionel Messi scored a brace and created a goal as Barcelona overtake Real Madrid at the top of the table after beating Sevilla 4-1 on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Sevilla dominated the first half hour on the Sanchez Pizjuan&#8217;s water-logged pitch and went ahead through Alberto Moreno&#8217;s 15th-minute goal.<\/p>\n<p>But as the rain showers turned into a downpour, Messi supplied a free kick for Alexis Sanchez to equalize in the 34th before the Argentina forward blasted in his first goal in open league play since Sept. 28, before his injury.<\/p>\n<p>With Sevilla surging forward after halftime, Messi stepped up once more to score from Andres Iniesta&#8217;s pass in the 56th. Substitute Cesc Fabregas capped the win with Barcelona&#8217;s fourth goal two minutes from time.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Barcelona showing the same vulnerability in defense, Messi&#8217;s best performance since returning from a lengthy injury layoff ensured that his side bounced back from a defeat by Valencia in the previous round. Barcelona is now level with Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid at the top of the standings after 23 rounds.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Lionel Messi scored a brace and created a goal as Barcelona overtake Real Madrid at the top of the table after beating Sevilla 4-1 on Sunday. Sevilla dominated the first half hour on the Sanchez Pizjuan&#8217;s water-logged pitch and went ahead through Alberto Moreno&#8217;s 15th-minute goal. But as the rain showers turned into a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,81],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}