For his first start since his thigh injury in mid-September, the Barcelona summer recruit launched his team perfectly from the 12th minute by cutting an outside ball from the sublime foot of the Catalan prodigy Lamine Yamal (1-0), before concretizing the domination blaugrana with a nice shot near the surface (31st, 3-0).
The Brazilian Raphinha, author of an exceptional start to the season, had doubled the lead a few minutes earlier on a serve from young Marc Casado (23rd, 2-0), scoring his fifth goal in three matches, the seventh in La Liga.
With a three-goal lead at the break, Hansi Flick’s men relaxed a little and ended up seeing their modest neighbor come back to the score after two goals refused for offside (28th, 58th) on a great collective action concluded by the Spanish scorer Javi Puado (63rd, 3-1).
Barça (1st, 33 points), whose eleventh victory in eleven days, temporarily takes a nine-point lead over its great rival Real Madrid (2nd, 24 points), whose meeting in Valencia was postponed in due to the deadly floods that hit the region this week.
The two teams observed a minute of silence before the match in tribute to the victims of this tragedy which has already caused 217 deaths in the east of the country and moved the whole world, and the Catalan club announced that it would auction the jerseys of its players to raise funds for disaster victims.
Par Le360 (with AFP)
03/11/2024 at 5:28 p.m.
