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Lionel Messi explains why Coutinho took Barcelona’s penalty against Sevilla

Lionel Messi talked about why he handed over penalty-taking responsibilities to Philippe Coutinho against Sevilla on Wednesday night.

The Brazilian opened the scoring from the spot after Messi had been fouled in a 6-1 win for Barcelona which saw them progress 6-3 on aggregate.

Coutinho has not been in the greatest form recently but wanted to take the spot-kick and Messi was happy to let him have it.

“Coutinho had scored a penalty against Levante and he wanted to take it,” he said.

“We talked about it. So he took it and I am happy because the comeback started there.