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 chances, 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 the goal in the first half came with a powerful ball from outside the area from Lewandowski, Bono brilliantly threw it and turned it into a corner (27).
The second half scenario 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 left crawling in the bottom left corner (58).
Gavi doubled the score when Frenchman Jules Conde lifted 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 wonderfully between four players towards the other post at the goal door, followed by the Spaniard in the net, scoring his first goal with jersey No. Like his coach and Barcelona legend Xavi (70).
And after Lewandowski’s ball passed from a pitcher’s kick on the outskirts of the area close to 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).
