The Argentine scored a hat-trick in the Bernabeu as he became the all-time leading scorer in Clasicos, but the 26-year-old has lavished praise on the entire team.

"On a personal level things are going very well for me but I have to point out that the whole team had an extraordinary game," Messi told reporters.

"This team always rises to the big occasions. We like playing in these types of games.

"We have to keep going. The league is very tough and we haven't got many games left. We can't afford to fail.

"It's an important win. We're back in the race again and we have to keep going. We can't make any more mistakes."

Messi has now scored back-to-back hat-tricks in La Liga after also netting a treble against Osasuna last weekend.

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Premier League Table

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Real Madrid	33	26	6	1	71	22	49	84
2	Girona Girona	33	22	5	6	69	40	29	71
3	Barcelona	32	21	7	4	64	37	27	70
4	Atletico Madrid Atletico	33	20	4	9	62	39	23	64
5	Athletic Bilbao	33	16	10	7	53	33	20	58
6	Real Sociedad	33	13	12	8	46	35	11	51
7	Real Betis Betis	32	12	12	8	40	38	2	48
8	Valencia	32	13	8	11	35	34	1	47
9	Getafe	33	10	13	10	41	45	-4	43
10	Villarreal	32	11	9	12	51	55	-4	42
11	Osasuna	32	11	6	15	37	46	-9	39
12	Alaves Alaves	33	10	8	15	31	38	-7	38
13	Sevilla	32	9	10	13	41	45	-4	37
14	Las Palmas Las Palmas	33	10	7	16	30	41	-11	37
15	Rayo Vallecano	32	7	13	12	27	39	-12	34
16	Mallorca	32	6	13	13	26	38	-12	31
17	Celta Vigo	33	7	10	16	37	50	-13	31
18	Cadiz Cadiz	32	4	13	15	22	45	-23	25
19	Granada	32	3	9	20	33	61	-28	18
20	Almeria	33	1	11	21	32	67	-35	14