Barcelona defeated Real Betis with five goals to two at Camp Nou, in the ninth round of the Spanish League.
Ousmane Dembele, Antoine Griezmann, Lionel Messi (twice), and Pedri scored Barcelona goals, while Tony Sanabria and Lauren Moron scored Betis’ goals.
Barcelona raised its tally to 11 points in eighth place from 7 matches, with two postponed matches remaining in its balance.
Betis stuck at 12 points in seventh place from 9 matches.
Consequently, Barcelona stopped his series of negative results in the Spanish League, as he spent 4 matches without victory by drawing against Sevilla and Deportivo Alaves, and defeating him by Getafe and Real Madrid.
On the other hand, Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini was unable to beat Barcelona for the 17th consecutive match, as he defeated Blaugrana for the last time when he was coach of Villarreal in 2008.
Betis was also unable to keep a clean sheet against Barcelona for the 34th consecutive match, as he did it for the last time in 2002.
The most prominent news was the return of the legend Leo Messi, as he had not scored or made goals in the last 5 matches in the Spanish League, but he rose strongly with two goals after entering a substitute at the start of the second half.
As for his coach Ronald Koeman, he will survive the mockery of Joaquin Sanchez, Real Betis captain, who has been a great enmity with him since they worked together in Valencia 12 years ago.
Joaquin said a few days ago that he “would not bring Koman to work at Betis, even as a locker room worker,” in continuation of the series of hostile statements from the veteran Spanish winger towards his former Dutch coach.
The greatest news
The Barcelona formation carried great news, with legendary Lionel Messi staying on the bench for the first time in nearly a year.
On the other hand, Ronald Koeman continued to rely on Sergio Busquets despite calls to pay Miralem Pjanic.
As for the formation of Real Betis, Claudio Bravo returned to Camp Nou, and began with captain Joaquin Sanchez, Coman’s enemy.
10 crazy minutes
The match witnessed a torrent of chances achieved in the first ten minutes, alternating between the two goals, with the home side an advantage.
The first waste was from Antoine Griezmann, who received a wonderful back pass from Ansu Fati in the fifth minute, but the Frenchman fired outside the goal despite having time and space.
The turn came to Fati himself in the sixth minute with a right shot in the far corner, but it went close to the goal.
Betis’s first threat came because of left-back Alex Moreno, one of the stars of the match, in the eighth minute, and while Busquets tried to keep the ball away, he almost accidentally hit his net.
In the same minute, Sergio Canales took a corner kick, which was greeted by William Carvalho with a powerful header, but Marc-Andre ter Stegen continued what he had been used to for years and saved Barcelona again.
The response came very quickly seconds later through Fati, who shot in the narrow corner of Bravo, but the Chilean captain saved him against his former team.
The attacks did not stop, so Griezmann launched in the 11th minute and fired a shot that, in turn, went past the post.
The goal is finally
In the 22nd minute, the net was finally shaken by the French Osman Dembele, who stormed in and fired a shot with his left foot that hugged Bravo’s net.
Barcelona had the opportunity to double the score in the 26th minute through Griezmann, who received a great pass with the heel from Pedri, but as usual he wasted it.
Griezmann’s greatest scoring opportunity came in the 31st minute, when the referee awarded a penalty after Algerian Issa Mandi blocked Fati.
In the absence of Messi, Griezmann proceeded to implement, but he also wasted after Bravo blocked the penalty kick, and he was the one who had joined him at Real Sociedad in the past for 5 years.
That was the first kick that Griezmann took with Barcelona’s jersey, as he had wasted 4 consecutive kicks, 3 with France, and one with Barcelona under Messi’s eyes.
Betis moved again, so Moreno started from the left and sent a cross to former Barcelona player Christian Tue in the 39th minute, but the latter’s shot slightly higher the crossbar.
Immediately before the end of the first half, Tony Sanabria equalized Betis with a powerful shot from inside the penalty area, and refused to celebrate after scoring the net for the team that grew up in its early stages.
Help, Messi!
Coman did not wait more than 45 minutes, and decided to pay Messi as a substitute for Fati between the halves … to turn the match around.
Messi needed only 4 minutes to contribute to the goal to advance to Barcelona without even touching the ball.
The Argentine star missed Jordi Alba’s cross, deceiving Betis’s defense and goalkeeper, and the ball safely reached Griezmann, who could not have wasted in the face of the empty net, to put Barcelona ahead in the 49th minute.
The goal is Griezmann’s number 200 in his club career, with 53 with Real Sociedad, 130 with Atletico Madrid, and 17 with Barcelona.
Betis tried to respond, Sanabria hit from close range, but Ter Stegen saved a save.
A new Algerian gag
Just as he committed a penalty kick in the first half, Mandy came back to repeat it in the second half with the 58th minute when he banished Dembele’s shot off the goal line with his right arm.
Referee Guillermo Cuadra Fernandez needed the help of a video technician to calculate the kick in the 60th minute, and show Mandy a red card.
This time Messi was on the field, and of course he did not waste it and scored with great skill against Bravo.
Messi scored his 100th penalty kick in his career out of 127 attempts, with a success rate of 79%.
In the 62nd minute, Joaquin Sanchez, the absent present, left the stadium, Christian Teo also left, and Aitor Roebal and Victor Ruiz replaced them, the center back.
Dembele left in the 66th minute, and Francisco Trenceau came in for his place.
The most influential change in Betis occurred in the 71st minute when striker Lauren Moron entered the place of Sanabria, and it only took 3 minutes to close the difference after Moreno cross, the best player for Betis.
Koeman sent off Griezmann in the 78th minute and was replaced by Martin Braithwaite, and the Frenchman looked very messed up as he left.
In the 82nd minute, Messi killed the match after a superb heel pass from Sergi Roberto, which the Argentine ended with a missile shot into the roof of Bravo’s net.
To be Messi’s first goal from a mobile game this season, after 6 goals, all of which were scored from penalty kicks.
The last moving goal scored by Messi goes back to August 8 against Napoli, meaning that he spent 1184 minutes with the club and the national team without scoring from a moving ball.
The match is the number 83 in Messi’s history, which he enters as a substitute with Barcelona, and he has scored a total of 38 goals with the Blaugrana after entering from the bench.
But in the Spanish league in particular, Messi is the third best substitute in history with 26 goals, behind Julio Salinas and Di Paola, who have 28 and 27 goals, respectively.
Barcelona finally concluded the match perfectly when young Pedri scored his first goal in his La Liga career in the 90th minute after Roberto’s cross.
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