From Dawn.com:
"Barcelona squandered a two-goal lead before seeing off 10-man Real Betis 4-2 to cut Real Madrid’s lead at the top of La Liga back to five points on Sunday.
Two goals from Lionel Messi and a goal apiece from Xavi and Alexis Sanchez fired them to the victory after Ruben Castro and Roque Santa Cruz had levelled.
Betis had Mario Vazquez sent off with the score at 2-2 with 20 minutes remaining and Barca never looked back.
Now the focus is turned to the Spanish Cup on Wednesday when the two giants face each other in the first leg of a quarter-final tie.
Real Madrid had came from behind on Saturday to win 2-1 at Mallorca with late goals from Gonzalo Higuain and Jose Callejon.
“The cup is a different competition so we have to change our mentality. What we do know is we will go all out to get through the tie,” said Xavi.
“We have no doubts about our play, although we know we can play better or worse than tonight. Our philosophy is always the same, we go out to attack. We were eight points behind Madrid and Betis made it difficult for us because they wanted the ball.”
Barca coach Pep Guardiola added of Wednesday’s game: “It’s always good to go into a game on the back of a win, but we know who we are up against and we’ll try to play the best game we can.”
“LIKE A JEDI KNIGHT— no, better than that— A TEMPLAR KNIGHT. This is a FLASH OF PURE INSPIRATION, and let me tip my hat to the genesis of this goal: Ibarra. Lionel only absolutely LIGHTS IT UP here, he LIFTS OFF IT, FLAMETHROWERS IT PAST poor Reny Vega. It’s just as well Reny didn’t get a hand to that because it would have TAKEN IT OFF HIS WRIST. Superlative football and an out of this world BERNINI SCULPTURE of a finish." GOL TV Commentator Ray Hudson
