Barcelona 2-1 Leganes: Leo Messi penalty earns agonizing victory

By the skin of their teeth Barcelona stayed in the title race, with Lionel Messi’s double bookending what had been a mostly dire match from the Catalans’ perspective.

Leganes were bold, brave and determined, nearly taking the point they so richly deserved from Camp Nou, but Barcelona’s star quality told in the end.

Messi opened the scoring in the 4th minute when Neymar fed Luis Suarez, who crossed for the Argentine at the back post, but Barcelona hopes that it would kick start the team and lead to a rout were not fulfilled.

Instead it was the minnows who threatened, with Marc-Andre ter Stegen making a string of fine saves, with a double stop from Nabil El Zhar and another block to deny the Moroccan winger particularly notable.

Early in the second half he kept Guerrero at bay too, but his resistance was eventually broken when Unai Lopez’s low strike beat him in the centre of his goal, a poor mistake after such a good performance to that point.

With time ticking away it didn’t look like Barcelona were going to get the goal they needed to stay one point behind Real Madrid, as they entered the weekend, but when Neymar was tripped in the box by Mantovani, Messi stepped up and did the business in the 90th minute.

The title is still a possibility, but the wheels look closer to falling off each week.