Barcelona moved away eight points at the top of the Spanish Football League, by defeating its guest, Seville, 3-0, on Sunday, in exchange for the fall of its rival and direct pursuit, Real Madrid, with friendly fire, in front of its host, Real Mallorca, 0-1, in the twentieth stage.
At Camp Nou, Barcelona achieved its fifth successive victory in the league, with goals from Jordi Alba (58), Gavi (70) and Brazilian Rafinha (79).
As for the island of Mallorca, Real fell with a reverse goal scored by its defender Nacho.
The Catalan club raised its score to 53 points compared to 45 for Real Madrid, knowing that the stage witnessed the failure of all five teams behind Barcelona to win.
This is Barcelona’s tenth victory in the last 11 league matches, and it has not lost in the last 15 matches in all competitions.
Coach Xavi Hernandez made one change to the squad that started winning against Real Betis on Wednesday (2-1), involving Alba in the left-back position instead of Alejandro Palladia.
However, he suffered an early setback by injuring captain Sergio Busquets in his ankle, to be replaced by Ivorian Frank Kessier in the eighth minute.
The Catalans dominated the course of the first half, but did not create many opportunities, as the most dangerous of them was for Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who reached the ball on the right side inside the area, and it was blocked by Moroccan goalkeeper Yassin Bounou with his foot into a corner (17).
And from the resulting ball, which was executed by Pedri, Uruguayan defender Ronald Araujo followed up with a header that passed next to the post.
The only other shot on goal in the first half came with a powerful ball from outside the area from Lewandowski, Bono brilliantly hit it and turned it into a corner (27).
The scenario of the second half differed, and Barca succeeded in reaching the net after Danish defender Andreas Christensen raised a ball behind the defenders into the area towards Rafinha, from him to Kessier, who passed it beautifully deceptively to Alba, to be followed by the latter with his crawling left in the bottom left corner (58).
Gavi doubled the score when Frenchman Jules Condé raised a beautiful ball over the defenders to Rafinha on the right corridor towards the outskirts of the area. The Brazilian received it and passed it with a wonderful through ball that passed between four players towards the other post at the door of the goal, followed by the Spaniard in the net, scoring his first goal with the No. Like his coach and Barcelona legend Xavi (70).
And after Lewandowski’s ball passed from a free kick on the outskirts of the area near the post (77), Rafinha scored the third goal with a wonderful pass from Alba from the left side to the front of the goal (79).
The curse of injuries haunts Real
Barcelona benefited in the best way from the fall of Real Madrid against Real Mallorca with friendly fire, with the goal of its defender Nacho (13), in a match during which his attacking wing, Marco Asensio, missed a penalty kick that was blocked by Serbian Mallorca goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic (60).
“It was difficult because of the timing of the game, the opponent, and everything becomes complicated when they are ahead,” Nacho said. “They were lucky with the goal and we also missed a penalty.”
Of the 29 errors committed by Mallorca in the match, 10 of them were against the Brazilian Vinicius Junior, who suffers this season from rough opponents and racist chants.
Nacho continued in this regard, “I think there is an atmosphere developing around Vinicius that does not serve anyone, not the player, not the football, not the fans who eventually get involved with him.”
“We have to enjoy football, which is a beautiful sport – we have to leave the differences and nonsense to one side.”
The curse of injuries continued in the ranks of Real, as Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was injured in his thigh during the warm-up period, so Ukrainian Andrei Lunin replaced him between the three woods.
Courtois joined veteran French striker Karim Benzema, who won the Ballon d’Or last season, after suffering a thigh injury, similar to fellow Brazilian defender Eder Militao.
The Meringue announced on Saturday that Belgian midfielder Eden Hazard had injured his left knee, while Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti was forced to put together a squad that French Ferland Mendy and Lucas Vasquez also missed for the same reason, and German Toni Kroos and Croatian Luka Modric sat on the bench to rest 3 days before the expected confrontation against Al-Ahly of Egypt in the Club World Cup held in Morocco.
‘painful loss’
“It’s a very painful loss,” said Ancelotti. “A tough game, with a lot of mistakes and a lot of stops… But we don’t have time to focus on this defeat. We have the Club World Cup that we want to win, and then we’ll fight for LaLiga until the end.”
And he continued about Vinicius, “I think that everything that is happening and happened is not Vinny’s fault. Vinny just wants to play football, and beyond that, there is an air of provocation. They abused him, that’s what happens.”
Hours later, Sociedad managed, the surprise of the season, to take advantage of the fall of Real Madrid and in turn fell at home against Valladolid 1-0 with the goal of Canadian Kyle Larrain (73).
Consequently, he failed to reduce the difference to three points with Al-Royal and remained third with 39 points, four points ahead of Atletico, who tied Saturday with Getafe.
Girona also drew 1-1 at home to Valencia.
The stage ends on Monday with the meeting of Rayo Vallecano with Almeria.
