Lionel Messi left spitting blood after clash during Barcelona’s heated El Clasico win over Real Madrid
The little magician won it late on for his side, but was earlier caught be the flailing arm of Madrid man Marcelo
LIONEL MESSI was left spitting blood during Barcelona's El Clasico win against Real Madrid.
The little magician, who scored his second goal of the game in injury time to win it for the Catalans, was caught by Marcelo's elbow in the first half.
While it appears the clash was unintentional, it left Messi crumpled on the floor, with him spitting out blood from the mouth.
The 29-year-old then came off the pitch for treatment, and returned to the Bernabeu grass with tissue on his mouth and blood pouring from his mouth.
But proving more Lionheart Messi than Lionel, ten minutes later the number ten netted to equalise after Casemeiro had given Real Madrid the lead.
But all was clearly not well as far as Messi's injury was concerned, as this video from the tunnel shows.
As the teams were coming out for the second half, Messi is shown looking somewhat uncomfortable, before he is shown spitting out blood.
But as we should all come to expect from arguably the greatest player of all time, just as Real Madrid thought they were bagging a point that would keep them clear at the top of La Liga, Messi had other ideas.
In the second minute of injury time, Jordi Alba squared to him in the box, and he did the rest, firing past Keylor Navas to secure Barcelona a 3-2 win to blow open the title race.