There were 44minutes on the clock, nine players between him and the goal and more than one club in Catalonia when Leo Messi appeared. In the time it took for the ball to leave his left foot, curl around the defenders and then curl back towards goal, somehow ending up in Kiko Casilla’s net, everything changed. The whistles died, the hankies were tucked away and FC Barcelona were back on course to win a Catalan derby that had started as a virtual irrelevance but now threatened to be become an insurrection, another fire they desperately need to put out.  There were no Espanyol fans in the stadium and there was no Espanyol president in the directors’ box. “Not one parakeet,” ran the headline. The managers had posed for photos together – coach Sergio González had insisted on doing so, despite opposition from his board – and it was on the front of the Catalan papers on Saturday morning but few expected a close contest or even a contest at all; the reality spoke of 17 points and €450m separating them. “It would be nice if there was no story … that would mean we had won,” Luis Enrique said. “They say winning would be the bomb. Or maybe a grenade, anyway,” Sergio said.  There was a story, an explosion. Asked before the game how you can hope to race against someone in a faster car, Sergio replied “let their tyres down” and Espanyol did just that. Only 13 minutes had gone when Sergio Busquets gave away the kind of chance he might well give away more often under different La Liga refereeing. Under pressure, he turned his back on his opponent and awaited contact, more interested in getting fouled than passing the ball. The foul was not given and Sergio García was away, running through.  Isolated, Gerard Piqué backed off and off. So García ran and ran. So Piqué backed off some more. So García ran some more. And then he cut inside and slotted past Claudio Bravo. It was the first time that Espanyol’s captain had scored against Barcelona, the club where he began his career. It was also the first time that any Espanyol player had scored at the Camp Nou since February 2009, when Iván de la Peña, ‘the Little Buddha’ gave them their first win at Barcelona in 27 years and led a team at the bottom to beat the team at the top for the first time ever. Suddenly, something almost as extraordinary seemed possible.  Back then, AS declared “God is a parakeet”. This time, Messi answered: “No, I’m not.” The following morning’s El Mundo Deportivo declared this “God’s derby.” God, ‘Dios’, was written D10S. Others preferred to describe him as the MESSIah. By the full time whistle, Barcelona had scored five; a frightened first half had given away to a superb second. Messi had scored three. That first, seemingly impossible strike had been the key. With a minute to go before half time, the tension had been growing. Barcelona lacked fluidity and identity.  “It is my fault,” Sergio said afterwards. “I wasn’t able to make the players forget that goal.” How could he? They were probably still wondering how a shot that went so far past them to their right end up in the back of the net to their left. A fortnight ago Toni Kroos scored a gorgeous goal for Madrid that was like a 10 pin bowler’s shot, curling right to the edge of the lane before arching all the way back in and taking out the middle pin; this shot curled out of the lane, reached the edge of the lane next to it and came back again.  Nor was it just the goal. Messi had already hit the bar with a free kick and, playing on the right but dropping back for the ball, then coming inside to drive through the middle, playing passes and making runs, he had taken it upon himself to pull the team back into the game, like he was on a mission. Suddenly the system worked. Messi is the system.  That’s the conclusion it is tempting to draw, anyway. It would an exaggeration, perhaps. Xavi played 125 passes, a league record; Neymar’s lack of standout plays disguised the importance of his movement; Pedro’s finishing was clean as ever, his goal brilliantly taken from a wonderful cross field pass from Jordi Alba, who has been getting better recently; Luis Suárez was withdrawn frustrated and goalless but, until this weekend at least, most have been impressed with his performances, and – get this – Barcelona even scored from a corner, heading in. It’s only taken them 100 of them. And yet while it would be an exaggeration to draw the conclusion that Messi is the system, it would not be far off.  This success, certainly, was all about him. And there is a momentum building; a response too. The night before, Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick as Madrid beat Celta, meaning he has now scored more in La Liga than anyone else. Twenty-four hours later, Messi got a hat-trick too – the fourth season in five in which they have both scored three on the same weekend. On Saturday night, Ronaldo took his total in Spain to 200 goals; on Sunday night, Messi took his total since Ronaldo arrived in Spain to over 200 for the first time. That daft idea returned: the one where they were secretly laughing at us, calling each other up on a Friday night and striking a deal. “What do you reckon, Cris? Three this week?” “Ok, Leo, three it is.”  Some could not resist a dig of course. “And not one from the penalty spot,” shouted the pointed headline in one Barcelona-based paper after Messi’s hat-trick. Ronaldo’s first had come from the spot after what looked suspiciously like a dive and, the paper gleefully noted, nine of Ronaldo’s league hat-tricks have been achieved without penalties while 17 of Messi’s have done. But Sergio Ramos was justified in insisting that the superlatives have all been used up: “You have to come up with new words to describe Ronaldo,” he said. And the figures are mind blowing. Try this:  Emilio Butragueño gave his name to an entire generation at Real Madrid, one that defined its era and was defined by its era, the sporting arm of a political, social and cultural explosion dubbed the Movida. He was La Liga’s top scorer in 1990-1991. His team-mate Hugo Sánchez, who always wished he had given his name to an entire generation at Real Madrid, was top scorer in 1984-85 and 1985-86. Manuel Fernández ‘Pahíño’ read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, whose banned books he brought under the counter in Catalonia, and claimed that he didn’t play for Spain more often because he was “too left-wing”. He scored over 100 times for Madrid and he was top scorer for Celta de Vigo in 1947-48.  In March 1981, a van carrying stolen number plates reading M9955AX, pulled up alongside the Barcelona striker Enrique Castro González ‘Quini’ at a petrol station. Two men got out, flashed Quini a rusty Colt 45, and whispered: “not a word: get in.” The kidnapping lasted almost a month, but Quini still finished the season top scorer, just as he had been in 1973-74 when he had been at Sporting Gijón. The story goes that Deportivo’s Diego Tristán didn’t sign for Real Madrid because the president was worried about his off-field behaviour, to which Tristán replied: “what do you want, a footballer or a monk?” He was top scorer in 2001-02.  Luis Aragonés changed Spanish football forever and once lost his false teeth during a touchline rant. He was top scorer in 1969-70. Alfredo Di Stéfano, arguably the most important club player of all time, the man who made a pretty normal Real Madrid into the 20th century’s most successful club, was top scorer in 1957-58. And Telmo Zarra, until recently La Liga’s all-time top scorer , the man they said had the second best head in Europe after Winston Churchill, was top scorer in 1944-45. Historic figures, those men finished those particular Pichichi-winning seasons with historic figures: 19, 19, 22, 20, 20, 20, 20, 16, 19, and 20 goals.  Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 23 this season already.  There are 24 games to go and Ronaldo has already scored enough goals to win the award for the top scorer in Spain 33 times. The man who stands nearest to him this morning, albeit 10 behind, is Messi, the man who took that all-time record off Telmo Zarra and the man who recently became the European Cup’s all-time top scorer too. He reached both of those records with hat-tricks. This weekend Messi scored his third hat-trick in four games; if the previous two were sufficient to become the all-time leading scorer at home and in Europe, this one prevented the Catalan derby becoming a story. After all, “Messi/Ronaldo takes home the match ball” probably doesn’t count as a story any more.  “I’m running out of things to write on Messi’s balls,” Ivan Rakitic said.  • After three consecutive clean sheets under David Moyes, Real Sociedad conceded their first goal. Then their second, then their third, then their fourth. “It could have been even worse,” Moyes admitted after his side were torn apart by a superb Villarreal team who also hit the post twice.  • Eleven months later, Álvaro Negredo scored. But Granada got a late equaliser through the brilliantly named Isaac Success.  • Ghilas! Now here’s a result no one predicted. Away at San Mamés against an Athletic team unbeaten in six, Córdoba got their first victory in primera for 42-and-a -half years.  • Bacca. Ten goals already this season.  • Over a week on from the killing of the Deportivo fan Jimmy Romero, the president of the Spanish Football Federation has still not said a single word. Not one.  • Mind you, not that the words said by just about everyone else have exactly filled us with confidence.  Results: Elche 0-2 Atlético, Athletic 0-1 Córdoba, Real Madrid 3-0 Celta, Deportivo 0-1 Málaga, Rayo 0-1 Sevilla, Barcelona 5-1 Espanyol, Villarreal 4-0 Real Sociedad, Granada 1-1 Valencia  Monday: Eibar v Almería, Levante v Getafe.
Sid Lowe: The remarkable thing about Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s twin hat-tricks is they are no longer really remarkable