Barcelona defeated Mallorca 4-0 in La Liga on Saturday and it is the Indian cricket team head coach Ravi Shastri who seems elated by that news. He took to social media to express his excitement and stated that it is great to see Barcelona alive and kicking.
Earlier in the week, the Spanish top tier league resumed its season after the COVID-19 enforced break since March.
Shastri even shared a couple of pictures from Barcelona’s match on Saturday and captioned the post as, “Great to see a great team back on the park alive and kicking @FCBarcelona”.
Great to see a great team back on the park alive and kicking ⚽️ – @FCBarcelona pic.twitter.com/7KX3SFNs2p
— Ravi Shastri (@RaviShastriOfc) June 14, 2020
During the match, Barcelona veteran Lionel Messi became the only player to score 20 goals or more in 12 consecutive seasons of La Liga after scoring the fourth goal in his team’s 4-0 win over Mallorca. It was the Catalan giants’ first match after the COVID-19 hiatus of almost three months.
The table-toppers Barcelona outplayed the relegation-threatened Mallorca in all departments at an empty Iberostar Stadium. The visitors got the breakthrough as early as in the second minute after Chilean midfielder scored with a diving header off a delivery from Jordi Alba.
The second one saw Messi performing his usual brilliance outside the opponent box before finding Martin Braithwaite – roped in as a replacement in January to cover Luis Suarez – who completed a calm finish to disturb Mallorca’s net for the second time in just 37 minutes.
Messi was back at spewing his magic again in the 79th minute when he found Jordi Alba who took them 3-0 up. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner deservingly got his name on the scoresheet in the dying minutes of the game to announce his grand return to top-flight football after the pandemic had brought almost all sporting activity around the world to a complete halt.