Atletico and Barça make it a clean sweep of wins in the Champions League

FC Barcelona 4-0 Manchester City

Barcelona made it three wins from three in Group C with a comfortable victory against former coach Pep Guardiola. Messi opened the scoring after 17 minutes racing onto Andres Iniesta’s layoff in the area and rounding Claudio Bravo. Man City threatened Marc-Andre Ter Stegen’s goal on a number of occasions though, as the hosts were forced to make two first-half changes, first Jordi Alba and then Gerard Pique going off with injuries.

The visitors were reduced to 10 men when Bravo handled outside the area after the retstart and it left them with an uphill battle. Iniesta slipped the ball through for Messi, and the Argentine beat Willy Caballero for the second, and he soon had his second consecutive hat-trick in Europe, from a Luis Suarez pass. Barça lost Jeremy Mathieu to a second yellow card but Barça never eased off. Caballero saved a penalty from Neymar late on, but was powerless to stop the Brazilian rounding off the scoring at the end.   

As it happened: Live Commentary  

FC Rostov 0-1 Atletico Madrid

Atletico lead Group D after a third consecutive win but it was tough going in Rostov. Diego Simeone’s men laid siege to the hosts’ goal with Angel Correa and Yannick Carrasco both going close to breaking the deadlock before halftime. Fernando Torres headed just over from Juanfran’s cross, but a few minutes later the full back set up the opener. His low cross found Carrasco at the back post and the Belgian cracked in from close range. The Rojiblancos have yet to concede a goal in this year’s competition.

As it happened: Live Commentary 

Carrasco has scored 5 goals in his last 4 games with Atletico. #UCL pic.twitter.com/oMFv4E8U4r

— LaLiga (@LaLigaEN) October 19, 2016