Barcelona skipper Lionel Messi was able to break his tie with long-term rival Cristiano Ronaldo but it was almost insignificant as his team suffered a big dent in the keenly contested race for the Spanish La Liga title.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi had both scored 25 goals in their respective leagues before Barcelona welcomed Granada to the Nou Camp on Thursday night. Cristiano Ronaldo is the leading goalscorer in the Italian Serie A this season with 25 goals in 29 games ahead of nearest challenger RomeluLukaku of imminent champions Inter Milan with 21 goals. On his part, Messi was also the leading goalscorer in the Spanish La Liga before the Granada game with 25 goals in 30 games.

Messi added league goal number 26 to give his team the lead at home to Granada after a wonderful exchange with fellow forward Antoine Griezmann. That opening goal took him to 26 goals in 31 games as he stretched his lead at the top of the scoring chart as far as the La Liga is concerned.

The goal was enough to give Barcelona a 1-0 lead at the half-time interval with the Catalans knowing that a win against Granada in the outstanding game would take them one point clear of Atletico Madrid at the top of the table. However, Granada had other ideas as they scored two goals in second half to stun Barcelona and take all the three points at stake via a 2-1 away win. It was the first win for Granada at the Nou Camp.

Darwin Marchis scored the equaliser just after the hour mark before Jorge Molina netted what proved to be the winning goal ten minutes from time.

With the defeat, Barcelona stay in third place on the same points with Real Madrid in second place. Real Madrid are in second place with a better head-to-head record. Sevilla are in fourth position with 70 points, while league leaders Atletico Madrid have 73 points. All the four teams have five games each to play to determine the La Liga champions for this season.