Topics: La Liga, Barcelona, Real Betis, Lionel Messi, Ansu Fati
The Argentine ace was left out of the starting XI, but he managed to make a difference when he came in for the second half.

After being slammed on social media for what seemed to be a poor attitude, Messi stepped up to change the game for Barcelona against Betis.

The player was left out of the team's starting eleven by Ronald Koeman, but that was not an impediment for him to change the course of the game while coming off the bench, as he was able to come up with a dummy assist and a brace for Los Culés.

Moreover, Messi was able to end quite a goalscoring jinx he had been experiencing in the current season, as all of his goals had come via the penalty kick spot. Today, "La Pulga" ended a streak of games where he had not been able to score from open play, which was making some of his fans a bit nervous.

Messi had one more reason to be happy about his performance after landing his first brace as a sub in quite a long time.

The footballer will now join the Argentine football team for one more round of World Cup Qualifying games.