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Barcelona once again occupies second position the league table and will be just five points behind the leaders for at least the next few days thanks to a hard-fought 1-0 win over Mallorca in the Montjuic Olympic Stadium on Friday night. Barça was missing several key pieces and they had a clear impact as blaugrana They were never close to their best, but a special goal from Lamine Yamal was enough to separate the two teams and give Barça not only three crucial points in the table, but also a much-needed boost of confidence ahead of the decisive match of the Champions League against Napoli.
FIRST HALF
The first 45 minutes followed the usual pattern of a Barça home game against five defenders and a low block: a lot of possession, a lot of lateral passes, zero creativity and movement, no real opportunities. Nothing was happening in the Olympic At the start of the game, Barça played at medium speed, with very little urgency and intensity, with and without the ball.
But they still had a golden opportunity to take the lead in the 24th minute when Raphinha was brought down by José Copete inside the area and the referee awarded a penalty after a VAR review; Ilkay Gündogan took the lead to the point where he is usually very reliable, but the German committed a bad penalty and Predrag Rajkovic made an easy save to keep the score as it was.
Mallorca received a boost of confidence with the penalty save and began to create danger on the counterattack, with the two forwards, Vedat Muriqi and Cyle Larin, using size and power to force the Barça defense to make some tackles and interventions crucial one on one. one, with Iñigo Martínez especially important on a couple of occasions to not concede a real chance.
Barça lost Raphinha at the end of the half because the Brazilian could not continue due to the blow to his ankle he suffered in the play that led to the penalty, and his substitute Fermín López brought much-needed juice to the match: his intense and natural style . The urgency level of the players around them increased, and Barça began to press further up the pitch with real intent and came close a couple of times in the final seconds, but were unable to find the final ball to unlock the well-organised defense. from Mallorca. .
At half-time the match was goalless and rather boring as Barça had their usual struggles against a parked bus and Gündogan wasted the only real chance of the period for both teams. The Catalans had some options on the bench to try to change the game, but they needed a lot of improvement to find the winning goals in the second half.
SECOND HALF
The match came to life at the beginning of the second half, with Mallorca surprisingly sending bodies forward looking to catch Barça off guard with a more offensive approach to try to regain the advantage. And they came close on a couple of occasions, but the Barça centre-backs continued to make important interventions to put an end to the dangerous visitors’ attacks.
He blaugrana They responded with a faster, more intense approach and used long balls to counter Mallorca’s sudden high press, and the home team had two great chances: Lamine Yamal hit the crossbar after a corner, and Gündogan missed another chance. gold. after a beautiful wall with Marc Guiu inside the area.
With the suspended Xavi watching from the stands, his brother Óscar Hernández acted as head coach and made two attacking changes on the hour, when Robert Lewandowski and Vitor Roque came off the bench looking to add the scoring force necessary to break the deadlock.
Lewy and Roque maintained the highest level of energy and intensity of the team in the second half and were very aggressive without the ball and at the same time improved Barça’s passing pace. He blaugrana They entered their best run of the match, but still needed a moment of individual brilliance to finally break Mallorca’s resistance.
And that shining moment came with 20 minutes remaining, when Yamal received a pass from Lewandowski on the edge of the area, cut inside with his left foot and unleashed a sensational curling shot that found the top corner with no chance for Rajkovic. It was a truly special strike and created a calm atmosphere. Montjuic to the life.
Mallorca looked for an immediate response against a Barça that initially allowed them to have possession and send crosses into the area, but the Catalans quickly regained control of the ball and sought to close the victory with a second goal that took us to the final 10. minutes.
The visitors made two substitutions in attack and switched to a back four in the final minutes as they looked for a late equaliser, but the blaugrana The defense remained strong and the final whistle came to give the home team the three points. This wasn’t pretty, but no one expected it to be. Barça were always going to struggle without many of their best players and needed a rare moment of genius from Yamal to win, but victory was all that mattered on this particular night. And they got it.
Next up, Naples. Oh darling.
Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Kounde, Cubarsí, Iñigo, Cancelo; Christensen, Gündogan (Romeu 87′); Yamal, Raphinha (Fermín 37′), Félix (Roque 62′); Guiu (Lewandowski 61′)
Goal: Yamal (73′)
Majorca: Rajkovic; González, Nastasic, Raíllo, Copete (Radonjic 82′), Lato (Costa 71′); Darder (Sánchez 71′), Samu, Morlanes (Rodríguez 61′); Muriqi, Larin (Prats 82′)
Goals: None