No Mess. No Neymar. No problem for Barcelona because they still have arguably the third best player in the world in Luis Suarez whose hat-trick kept Barca on track for a an unprecedented third FIFA World Club Championship. Suarez is the first player who has scored hat-trick in the Club World Cup history
Suarez’s goals led Barca to a 3-0 win over Guangzhou Evergrande, and set up a meeting with River Plate in Sunday’s final.
Even without Messi and Neymar, Barcelona were rarely troubled by Guangzhou and they took the lead in the 39th minute when Guangzhou goalkeeper Li Shuai could only parry Ivan Rakitic’s powerful strike from distance into the path of Suarez, who was on hand to poke home the rebound.
Rather than be deterred by the goal, Guangzhou were spurred into action and caused Barcelona a few headaches due to the excellent delivery of their crosses from Long Zheng. They almost found an equaliser before the break from his free-kick when Elkeson’s flick header forced Claudio Bravo into a scrambling save low to his right.
Suarez got his and Barça’s second of the evening five minutes after the restart. It was Iniesta who supplied the assist, putting through a sublime through-ball which the former Liverpool forward chested down before producing a fine finish.
Suarez completed his hat-trick from the spot in the 67th minute after El Haddadi had been fouled in the box by Huang Bowen. Li Shuai dived the right way, but the Uruguayan’s penalty had too much power and precision for him to stop.
At the game petered out Suarez went close twice more as two left-footed shots were curled narrowly wide. The desire for goals from Barcelona’s No9 and the support shown by the Guangzhou Evergrande fans did not diminish during the course of the match.
