Raphinha hat-trick sends Barcelona four points clear
Raphinha stole the show with a hat-trick as Barcelona restored its four-point lead at LaLiga's summit with a 5-2 win over Sevilla.
Having seen second-placed Real Madrid thrash Elche 4-1 a day earlier, Hansi Flick's side responded in emphatic fashion at Camp Nou to keep things under control with 10 league games remaining.
Barca came flying out of the blocks and found its reward when Djibril Sow clumsily felled Joao Cancelo, with Raphinha on hand to coolly dink his ninth-minute penalty down the middle and open the scoring.
A Jose Angel Carmona hand-ball when attempting to tackle Cancelo handed Barca its second spot-kick 12 minutes later, and Raphinha drilled into the bottom-left corner despite Odysseas Vlachodimos diving the right way and getting a hand to the effort.
Dani Olmo put the host three goals to the good with a thumping 38th-minute finish after Marc Bernal's deflected pass fell his way, but Sevilla hit back before the break when Oso redirected Juanlu Sanchez's delivery back past Joan Garcia.
However, Raphinha extinguished any hopes of a Sevilla comeback when completing his treble with 51 minutes on the clock after linking up with substitute Fermin Lopez and seeing his shot fortuitously deflect off Nemanja Gudelj, leaving Vlachodimos stranded.
Cancelo finally got in on the act when combining with Raphinha and finishing smartly for his first goal since returning to Barca before Ronald Araujo and Robert Lewandowski passed up further chances late on.
Sevilla managed a late consolation when Sow nodded past Garcia from Oso's cross, though that could not take the gloss off a dominant home performance.
