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Barcelona beat Huesca from the La Liga basement 1-0 on Sunday courtesy of a Frenkie de Jong goal by Lionel Messi in Argentina’s 500th league appearance with the club.
Dutch midfielder De Jong reached the far post to face a Messi cross and volleyed in the 27th minute to give the visitors a well-deserved lead after a wild start.
But Ronald Koeman’s team did not take advantage of his many other opportunities and in the end made a sweat for the three points.
Huesca was able to draw in the second half when the ball slipped through the Barça area and forward Rafa Mir directed a heel backwards, but the shot was lacking in strength and goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen made the save despite to see the ball late.
The victory put Barça above Sevilla and to fifth place in the standings with 28 points, 10 behind the leader Atlético de Madrid, who beat Alavés 2-1 before and have one game less than the Catalans. Huesca is down with 12 points.
“Obviously we have to finish off our opponents in games like this; we suffered too much in the end,” said Barça goalkeeper Ter Stegen.
“But these are three very important points, we had to suffer for them and games like this are very important when you want to win the title.
“We got hacked a bit in the first and second half and we couldn’t take our chances, but we stayed focused at all times.”
Barça had been limited to a frustrating 1-1 draw at home to Eibar in their last match and had also lost Philippe Coutinho to a serious knee injury, but they could at least welcome Messi, who had missed that game because of an ankle problem.
The Argentine looked a bit off-beat in his historic league match and wildly missed the target with a left-handed volley in the first half when the sensible option would have been to take it with the right.
However, he made amends with a clever play for the game’s only goal, picking De Jong with a sensational, curly crossover.
Messi was about to score at the end of the first half with a free kick, but Huesca goalkeeper Álvaro Fernández crossed to clear the crossbar.
