The Euro Roundup: Messi magic, Sassuolo madness and Sancho stars again

All you need to know from the weekend in which Lionel Messi provided a timely reminder of his excellence having finished fifth in the Ballon d’Or voting.

This week there was joy for Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus, but despair for PSG, Schalke and Sassuolo, who contrived to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Messi inspires Barca

Barcelona are now three points clear at the top of the La Liga table having beaten Espanyol 4-0, with Sevilla only able to draw at Valencia.

Lionel Messi was in inspired form, scoring two stunning free-kicks, as Barca hammered their rivals. That game was on Saturday night, with Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele also scoring.

Sevilla went ahead in their game through Pablo Sarabia, but Mouctar Diakhaby equalized in the second minute of added time to dent their title hopes.

Atletico Madrid were able to draw level on points with Sevilla as they comfortably beat Alaves 3-0. Nikola Kalinic scored the opener with Antoine Griezmann and Rodri adding two more goals quite late on.

Real Madrid also won, with a narrow 1-0 victory at Huesca thanks to a goal from Gareth Bale, just his fourth league goal of the season, as Los Blancos moved into the top-four places.

The game of the weekend saw Eibar and Levante draw 4-4. Both sides led in the match in the first half, before Eibar went 4-2 up, only to concede a 75th-minute goal to Tono to make it 4-3, and then a 92nd-minute equalizer came from Borja Mayoral, the on-loan Real Madrid man.

Goals, and draws, galore

The Italian weekend kicked off with a clash between Juventus and Inter Milan, which finished 1-0 to the former, who extended their lead at the top of the table.

Juve have now only dropped points once all season — in a draw with Genoa — although Napoli are doing their best to keep pace. They beat Frosinone 4-0 on Saturday with Arkadiusz Milik scoring twice, but are still eight points off top spot.

Both the other two matches on Saturday finished 2-2, with Cagliari drawing with Roma and Lazio held by Sampdoria.

Four more draws arrived on Sunday, with AC Milan and Torino goalless, and Genoa-SPAL and Parma-Chievo both finishing 1-1.

Sassuolo drew 3-3 with Fiorentina; they were 3-1 up in minute 88, but just after Filip Djuricic had been sent off for two yellow cards in the space of a minute, goals from Marco Benassi and Kevin Mirallas made the score level.

Nikola Milenkovic was also shown a second yellow card five minutes after Djuricic’s, in between his side scoring their two late goals, in what was a frenetic finish to the game.

Poor week for PSG

Only four matches took place this weekend in France, with a full calendar of games also taking place last midweek.

Just days after PSG dropped their first points of the season by drawing 2-2 at Bordeaux last Sunday, they could only draw 1-1 with Strasbourg on Wednesday.

Closest challengers Lille, though, could only draw 1-1 with Reims, so the gap at the top was not closed, and remains unsurmountable even at this stage.

Lyon also slipped up on Wednesday, as they lost 2-0 at home to Rennes. Lyon are down in fourth place as a result, but Lille in second spot are only three points ahead of them and have played a game more.

Amiens bounced back from becoming only the third team to lose to Monaco this season on Tuesday by winning 2-1 away at bottom side Guingamp on Saturday.

Sancho on the mark

Borussia Dortmund maintained their seven-point buffer at the top of the Bundesliga after they beat rivals Schalke 2-1.

Jadon Sancho scored the winner with 16 minutes of normal time remaining in the latest incredible moment of his breakout season in Germany.

Second-placed Borussia Monchengladbach also won, beating Stuttgart 3-0 thanks to goals from Raffael, Florian Neuhaus and an own-goal from Benjamin Pavard.

Bayern Munich beat Nurnburg by the same scoreline with Robert  Lewandowski scoring twice in that game; they are now in third spot because RB Leipzig were heavily beaten 3-0 at Freiburg.

The gap between Bayern and Dortmund, though, remains nine points, three games before the halfway mark in the season.

Elsewhere, Bayer Leverkusen beat Augsburg 1-0, Wolfsburg held Hoffenheim to a 2-2 draw and Marko Grujic scored the only goal as Hertha Berlin beat Eintracht Frankfurt.