Barcelona 4-3 Celta Vigo: Match review | OneFootball

FC Barcelona was faced with a massive challenge against Celta Vigo in their recent La Liga game. For La Blaugrana, this was a massive opportunity to extend their lead at the top of the table. Unfortunate, however, things became much more complicated than they needed to be for Barcelona.

Heading into this game, Barça were aware of the strengths of their opponent and Celta were just as aware of their quality. Still, despite the lack of rest and days off, the Catalan side was expected to be the clear favorites to win this contest between the two teams.

Initially, despite playing rather poorly and barely creating anything, Barça managed to grab an early lead through Ferran Torres. A goal that came out of individual brilliance, it saw the Spaniard dribble with the ball before unleashing a vicious strike into the bottom corner.

However, Barça’s joy would be short-lived as their opponents would reply shortly afterwards. In a moment of vulnerability, the team looked completely out of position and Celta Vigo took advantage of that through the wide channel and a superb delivery saw the ball reach Borja Iglesias through the fingertips of Wojciech Szczesny and the foot of Pau Cubarsi.

With the score at 1-1, the home side desperately needed to wake up. Unfortunately, Celta Vigo kept on punishing Barça’s mistakes and it ended up rewarding them quite generously. By the end of the first half, Barcelona had 67% of the possession but only generated an xG of 0.51 compared to Celta’s 1.05.

In the second half, Hansi Flick’s side still did not wake up as they should have. Celta Vigo continued to create chances, and Iglesias struck twice again to complete his hattrick. Through a mixture of his own brilliance and Barça’s abysmal defensive positioning, he looked to have completed decimated their hopes of winning this game with the score at 1-3 in Celta’s favor.

However, the introduction of the likes of both Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo completely changed the game. The second goal that Barcelona scored came through a brilliant display of teamplay between Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, and Olmo as he finished it off.

Then, soon after, Lamine Yamal delivered a precise cross into the box and it was met by Raphinha, who headed the ball into the back of the net. With the score now at 3-3, La Blaugrana just needed one more goal to complete a comeback that had begun to look impossible at a certain point in the game.

Following the 90th minute mark, eight additional minutes were added on for stoppage time. Midway through that period, Dani Olmo was brought down in the Celta Vigo box and some time later, the referee was called to look at the monitor by VAR. He then confirmed the penalty, and Raphinha stepped up to take it and buried it home.

With these crucial three points, Barcelona have now put the pressure on Real Madrid to get a positive result against Athletic Club. Unfortunately, however, La Blaugrana have also lost Robert Lewandowski to injury and he is expected to stay sidelined for a few weeks now.