Barcelona striker Leo Messi recovered from a mouth infection to score his second hat-trick in a week and lead his team to a 4-2 win away to Zaragoza, keeping upthe pace of La Liga lead with arch-rivals Real Madrid.

Messi scored a first half header and two individual goals in the second half as Barcelona overcame a battling performance from their hosts.

Taking into account the two goals he scored in the Champions League win against Stuttgart on Wednesday night, he has now scoredeight of his side's last 10 goals.

Adrian Colunga scored two goals with the score at 3-0 to make Barcelona suffer before Zlatan Ibrahimovich secured the points with a penalty provoked by Messi.

Real Madrid beat Sporting Gijon in controversial fashion on Saturday night. David Barral had put Sporting ahead after 53 minutes, but a minute later Rafael Van der Vaart equalized after clearly controlling the ball with his hand.

Xabi Alonso and Gonzalo Higuain added further goals as the Sporting players were clearly upset by Van der Vaart's goal, whichshould never have been allowed.

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