Barcelona temporarily extended her advance at the top of the La Liga 7-point table thanks to a wild 4-3 return victory against Celta Vigo at Montjuïc Olympic stadium on Saturday afternoon. After a bad start of the game Blaugrana He found himself 3-1 after an hour, but a furious return of the second half crowned by a winner of the 98th minute by Raphinha of Place de Pénélée gave the Catalans three gigantic points to keep control of the title race for another weekend.
First semester
Although it does not have Lamine Yamal in the alignment, which started a match on the bench for the first time in months, Barça experienced a strong start of competition with a good passage from the rear to beat Celta’s high press and fast and incisive movements in the last third to generate good attacks.
They only needed 11 minutes to find the opener thanks to a magnificent race and at the end of Ferran Torres, and the Catalans look in fairly good shape early. But a bad mistake has changed everything: Celta brought the ball back and went to a fast counter through the right wing, and Wojciech Szczesny failed to get out of her goal in time to claim a relatively low low cross pablo which offered Borja Iglesias a Tap-In to equalize for visitors only three minutes after Barça.
Celta immediately jumped by scoring and began to offer a real threat, and Szczesny was forced to redeem himself and to make a lot of crucial stops, including a head-on-head against Iglesias and a double monster stop against Ilaix Moriba and Iker Losada. The Barça offside trap did not work and Celta timed their races and passes perfectly, and offered a huge threat for the whole period.
Barça, on the other hand, has struggled to decompose an obstinate and well-organized defense of visitors, and had to be satisfied with a few distance shooting which did not disturb Vicente Guaita and showed a lack of creativity of the hosts, who had no threat on the wings and found no space in the middle either against a compact form 4-1-4 on the outside.
The whistle at halftime ended half a worrying half for Barça, which looked vulnerable in the back and desperately needed a spark at the front. They had Yamal and others on the bench capable of changing things with an individual shine, but the biggest problem was to understand how to overcome a great performance of the Celta team after the first 45 minutes.
Second half
Hansi Flick did not make a substitution for half-time, but his opposite number did it, as Claudio Giráldez sent to the former defender of Barça óscar Mingueza and returned to his favorite training 3-4-3 to become even more solid with a back to five possession.
Barça continued to have trouble attacking either on the wing or in the middle, and they have somehow offered a different goal to visitors: Frenkie de Jong failed to control a simple long ball from the rear, allowing to bounce perfectly on the path of Iglesias which had time and space to choose the lower corner and double its tally to put the visitors in the period.
Flick had no choice but to send Yamal and Dani Olmo to Hour Mark to try to bring his team back to the game, while Celta remained calm and composed at the back, perhaps looking to double their advance on the counter.
And this is exactly what happened in the 62nd minute: after a bad pass from Olmo by the box, a simple authorization in a way crossed three defenders of Barça who had just watched Iglesias cross the middle and launched Szczesny to complete his triplet and completely silent Montjuïc crowd.
Then Barça came to life and, in just five minutes, managed to erase the example of Celta thanks to Raphinha, who first helped the beautiful Olmo finish on the left, then returned home a magnificent Yamal cross to bring Barça – and the stadium – in the competition.
THE Blaugrana Completely dominated the last 25 minutes and Celta has completely parked the bus trying to keep the scoring as it was, even if it sacrificed their ability to counter-attack. Flick waited for the last five minutes to throw caution in the wind, by sending Pau Víctor, removing two defenders in 3-3-4 training in search of a late winner.
The Catalans almost conceded the winner in the 90th minute when Mingueza found himself alone inside the box of six yards with a free header and an open net, but he sort of missed the target completely and spread to waste Celta’s best chance. Iago Aspas came out of the bench and used dirty time time tactics to try to frustrate Barça, and the game was always to be saved while we have reached eight minutes of downtime.
Celta’s time seemed to work and it seemed to be going to a devastating draw for Barça, then everything changed in the 96th minute: Yoel Lago gave a kick at the back of Olmo’s foot inside the box, and the referee pointed out after a quick verification of Var.
Raphinha intervened on the spot, pulled a rocket in the net and finished the return for the hosts. The final whistle came a few minutes later to put an end to one of the wildest games of the recent memory of Barça, one that he probably did not deserve to win but found a way to fly thanks to their avant-garde talent and their brand resilience under Hansi Flick.
What a victory, what a return and what way of surviving Celta’s exceptional performance. This one is memorable.
Barcelona: SZCZESNY; Kounde, Cubars (Eric 87 ‘), Iñigo, Martín (Víctor 87’); De Jong, Pedri; Raphinha, Fermín (Olmo 59 ‘), Ferran (Yamal 59’); Lewandowski (Gavi 78 ‘)
Goals: Ferran (12 ‘), Olmo (64’), Raphinha (68 ‘, Pen 90 + 8’)
Celta Vigo: Guaita; Rodríguez, Lago, Alonso, Carreira; Beltrán; Durán (López 74 ‘), Moriba (Sotelo 89’), Losada (Mingueza 46 ‘), Swedberg (Alfon 60’); Iglesias (ASPAS 74 ‘)
Goals: Iglesias (15 ‘, 52’, 62 ‘)
