Barcelona.- Barcelona took a huge step towards winning its first Spanish League title in the post-Lionel Messi era after coming back from behind and taking the 2-1 win in the classic against Real Madrid this Sunday.
Franck Kessié scored in stoppage time as Barça emerged victorious at their Camp Nou fiefdom, opening a 12-point lead over the reigning champions with 12 rounds to go.
“There are many games left and you can never give Madrid up for dead,” said Barça midfielder Sergi Roberto, scorer of Barça’s first goal. “Twelve points is a difficult distance to let go, but it depends on us, which is good”.
The meringues went ahead on the scoreboard after Ronald Araujo scored an own goal off a Vinicius Junior cross after nine minutes.
Barca’s reaction came to the brink of defeat until the discount of the first half, when Sergi Roberto found a rejection in the area that he sent to the nets.
In the second minute of added time, Franck Kessie sealed the victory by sending Alejandro Balde’s diagonal pass into the back of the goal and a previous heel shot from Robert Lewandowski.
With 10 minutes remaining in regular time, the VAR invalidated a goal by Marco Asensio due to an advanced position, which had been considered good in the first instance on the pitch.
The Barça of the strategist Xavi Hernández aspires to its first domestic crown since the one in the 2018-2019 season, when Messi was the figure of the team.
Madrid finds it very difficult to defend the crown from last tournament and more when it has to attend to commitments such as the Champions League quarterfinals, in which it will face Chelsea in April, in addition to having the return of the Copa del Rey just before Barça, who is up 1-0 on aggregate.
“You have to be honest. We’ll keep fighting, but there’s a four-game difference”, goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois analyzed Madrid’s compromised situation. “Nothing is impossible, but… we’ll have to come here to win in the Cup”.
The meringues took the advantage in a drop from Vinicius, who took a delayed cross that hit the head of the Uruguayan defender Araujo to unintentionally send the ball into his own net.
The reaction of the hosts lasted until the end of the first part. Raphinha had the ball on one side of the rival area and took a shot that was parried by the defense, but he remained in the area where Sergi Roberto was to send it into the net.
Barcelona found victory in a counterattack in which Kessie defined with class with a shot near the post.
The next edition of the classic will be on April 5 again at the Camp Nou, when the second leg of the Copa del Rey semifinals will be played.
SEVILLE FALLS AGAINST GETAFE
Munir El Haddadi (50) and Enes Ünal (95) celebrated the goals with which Getafe beat Sevilla 2-0, with which the Azulón team left the relegation zone and the Andalusian could not get away from the last places .
Getafe reached 29 points to settle in 13th position. Sevilla is 14th with 28 units, just a couple above the fateful zone.
THE ROYAL SOCIETY DEFENDS THE 4TH POSITION
Real Sociedad beat bottom club Elche 2-0 at home with goals from Takefusa Kubo (48) and Ander Barrenetxea (90) to stay in the qualifying zone for the next Champions League.
The San Sebastian team has 48 units to go fourth, three points above Betis. Elche was last with just 13 points.
In other results, Real Betis beat Mallorca 1-0 and Villarreal thrashed Osasuna 3-0 on the road.
