Collision course for the treble: Barcelona and Lionel Messi in form for Juventus challenge

Barcelona is a city of hangovers on Sunday.

The festival goers at the giant Primavera sound festival have had their fix of Bell & Sebastian, Interpol, The Strokes, Sleaford Mods and over a hundred other acts by the Mediterranean. The eardrums of the 55,000 fans who attended an AC/DC concert in the Olympic Stadium have readjusted, while the brains of the 70,000 Athletic Bilbao fans who arrived in the Catalan capital are still coming to terms with another Copa del Rey final defeat to Lionel Messi and Barcelona.

The home fans, who were outnumbered in their own stadium but not their home city, had another night of celebrations after securing a second trophy in a week. Most are now moving on.

The concert goers are going home, the red and white Athletic shirts dominate the city less and less with every passing hour. They haven’t seen their Basque only team win a trophy in 31 years, but they continue to follow them in vast numbers.

Faced with a cup final in Camp Nou a five-hour drive from Bilbao, they didn’t just match the Barça fans for support; they outnumbered them in their own home.

It was an incredible sight. How could that be if both clubs were allocated 38,500 tickets? Most of the 19,000 neutral tickets found their way into Basque hands and there were many red and white shirts in the Barça sections. Be it avaricious Barça fans touting them or desperate ones who wanted to make money to fund a trip to Berlin, the end result was Basque dominance – at least off the pitch. On it, the opposite was true.

The game started after both sets of fans had loudly jeered Spain’s national anthem in front of the watching King Felipe. It was to be expected from Basques and Catalans, but there are likely to be political repercussions. At least the whistling wasn’t editing out on national television as it was in 2012.

The Basques have historical ill-feelings towards the Spanish state and will have mixed feelings about Messi. They’ll curse him because he stops them winning trophies by scoring in cup finals against them. He scored in the 2009 and 2012 Copa del Rey final successes and he scored twice on Saturday night with his best cup final appearance to date.

They’ll also acknowledge that he’s the best player in the world – and by a distance at present.  

Messi’s first goal on Saturday was one of his greatest ever. Twenty minutes in and seemingly trapped by three Basque foes by the touchline, the number 10 cut in from the right, beat all three and then a fourth before drilling the ball between Iago Herrerin his near post for his 57th club goal of the season.

“I think Messi’s first goal was one of his best ever, spectacular,” said Xavi Hernandez, who played his final Barça game on home soil. “He went from his man and two others who were covering. Brutal, simply spectacular.”

Messi was at heart of the second in the 3-1 win, too. He combined with the exceptional Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez to make it easy for Neymar to finish for his 38th of the season. And Messi scored the third from a 73rd minute Daniel Alves cross.

His 58 goals Barça goals this season may not match Cristiano Ronaldo’s incredible 61 for Real Madrid, but Messi has won the league and cup and is a favourite to be a European champion as Barça go for their fourth Champions League final (and win) in nine years.

“We’re used to Messi,” smiled Luis Enrique after the striker’s two-goal cameo, “we enjoy him every day in training. His first goal was from another galaxy. I can’t wait to see it on TV to enjoy it properly.”

The exacting Enrique and Messi haven’t always seen eye-to-eye but the air has been clear between them since a January defeat to David Moyes’ Real Sociedad.

After sitting next to Cristiano Ronaldo as he lifted another Ballon d’Or in January, Messi has been football’s finest player since. He’s motivated, fit, lean and in utterly sublime form.

The Argentine was the talisman as Barça came from behind in the league to lift the title, the key man as Barça won a record 27th Copa del Rey. His team dominate games like they always did under Pep Guardiola, with 74% against the Basques typical, but they’re more direct – and that divides opinions among the Guardiolaistas - and have an attacking three which scores more goals than Messi, Eto’o and Thierry Henry did.

The blaugraunas attacking triumvirate have scored 120 this season, surpassing the previous 118 goal record set by Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gonzalo Higuain in 2012. Luis Suarez, with 24 of those goals, didn’t kick a ball until the end of October. The player so missed by Liverpool recovered from injury to be fit to play against Athletic and should be fine for Juventus on Saturday.

Barça fans will get over another celebration and the associated hangovers and at least 20,000 of them will begin heading north east to Germany later in the week. Over 70,000 season ticket holders applied for those tickets and they’ll go by coach for around €140 or return flights for three times that price.

The team will speak to the media on Tuesday and then travel to Berlin on Thursday. With a settled, injury free and in-form best XI, they’re the best side in football at the moment.

They have a chance to prove it against a Juventus team going for their own treble.