Lionel Messi narrowly escaped being sent-off after headbutting Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa as Barcelona's friendly with Roma became anything but friendly on Wednesday night.

Roma knew they were in for a frustrating evening at the Nou Camp chasing the shadows of the European Champions and after going 1-0 down to Neymar's opener French international Mapou lost his temper with Messi leaning his head in towards the Barcelona No 10 and making clear contact.

Messi responded by butting the French defender and grabbing him by the throat. The Spanish referee Javier Estrada Fernandez could easily have sent both players off - Mapou for the original aggression and Messi for the retaliation but instead showed the pair yellow cards and the game continued 11 against 11.

Alessandro Florenzi was then booked for going cynically through the back of Neymar and Radja Nainggolan made it a hat-trick of cautions for the visitors in the first half when he went into the book for complaining.

But it was impossible for things to turn too ugly as Barcelona produced some of the beautiful football that won them the treble last season to beat Rudi Garcia's team.

Their second goal was picture book with Luis Suarez dribbling in from the right past Vasilis Torosidis and feeding Dani Alves who teed-up Neymar. 

He laid the ball off to Messi who found the corner with a vicious curling shot.

That doubled Barca's lead after the Brazilian had opened on the scoring on 26 minutes.