Raphinha scored twice while Barcelona overcome a deficit of two goals to ensure a crucial 4-3 victory at home against the Real Madrid rivals in a classico pulsed on Sunday, bringing them closer to the title Laliga.
The victory extends Barcelona’s advance at the top of the seven points on Real Madrid, second with three games to play. Another victory will win a 28th Spanish League title for the Catalans.
Barça won a fourth consecutive victory over Madrid in all competitions this season, and their second in less than a month, in a chaotic match in which the two parties showed their usual defensive weaknesses.
However, Barça seemed a much stronger team and well organized as a whole, dominating possession and creating several chances which have been refused by an inspired guardian Thibaut Courtois, who prevented the loss of Real from being by a greater margin.
Barcelona can secure the title of Laliga on Wednesday, if Real Madrid fails to win in Mallorca. However, whatever the result of Madrd, a Barcelona victory in their city derby against Espanyol on Thursday would guarantee the championship for the Catalans.
Madrid took a flourishing start at the Olympic stadium Montjuic, with a Kylian Mbappé splint giving them an advantage of two goals.
He opened the scoring of the penalty point after being the victim of a fault inside the box by the goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny in the fifth minute and extended their advance with a quick counter nine minutes later with a assist of Vinicius Junior.
However, Barcelona responded quickly with Eric García, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha all finding the net within 15 minutes to overthrow the deficit.
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Garcia returned home from a corner in the 19th minute, while Yamal marked the equalizer in the 32nd with another shiny technique display while he curled up a superb right corner of the box just outside the scope of Courtois and inside the distant post.
Two minutes later, a bad error of Mbappé in the midfield gave the Barca le Ballon, with Raphinha throwing a fast counter and giving his team with a well stored finish in front of a helpless courteous.
Madrid thought he had obtained a second penalty in the 43rd minute, but it was canceled due to an offside in construction and, a minute later, an expensive error by Captain Lucas Vázquez offered Raphinha the goal that extended Barça’s advance.
Barcelona returned strongly in the second half and had several chances refused by a chain of surprising backups by Courtois.
They were shocked, however, when Mbappé reduced the deficit in the 70th minute after a quick counterattack from Vinícius, who ran to the right and put it on a plate for France forward to finish its hat turn.
However, the champions of last year could not recover, leaving them at the edge of a season without silverware.
“It was obviously very important to win today. It’s great to have this match after the Champions League, I think it’s already forgotten,” Yamal told Modistar Plus after being eliminated from Europe in the semi-finals in a heartbreaking defeat in the middle of the week against Inter Milan.
“Suffering is what makes you strong and what teaches you to correct the mistakes you make. They have not created any chance of clear cut other than the objectives.
“It was very important to win today to get closer to the title of League. We are delighted.”
