Barcelona beat Alavés 6-1 at Camp Nou after two defeats, with Raphinha and Lamine Yamal scoring twice each to put Hansi Flick's side top of La Liga.
Barcelona ended a run of two straight defeats on Saturday with a 6-1 win over Alavés at Spotify Camp Nou. Raphinha and Lamine Yamal scored twice each, and Hansi Flick's side went top of La Liga on 30 points, two clear of Atlético Madrid.
The damage to repair was a 2-1 home loss to Real Madrid in El Clásico and a 4-2 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. After the Clásico, Flick said his team lacked freshness. Against Alavés they had it from the first whistle.
The move that set the tone
The opening goal in the 8th minute was the argument in miniature. According to the club's report, a 15-pass move involving nine players ended with Pedri releasing Fermín López down the left with an outside-of-the-boot pass. Fermín squared it and Raphinha finished.
Fermín was the connective piece all night. BBC Sport credits him with the assists for both Raphinha goals (8th and 41st minutes), and he scored the second himself in the 23rd, collecting a pass from Yamal and shooting from a tight angle.
Yamal made it four before the break with a low strike from the edge of the area in first-half stoppage time. Alavés had a brief spell: an effort hit the crossbar and Joan García denied Protesoni. It did not change the shape of the match.
Here is how the goals arrived, with the assists as listed by BBC Sport:
| Minute | Scorer | Assist |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Raphinha | Fermín López |
| 23 | Fermín López | Lamine Yamal |
| 41 | Raphinha | Fermín López |
| 45+1 | Lamine Yamal | João Cancelo |
| 64 or 65 | Lamine Yamal | Gabriel Jesus |
| 81 | Anthony Gordon | Rodri |
| 84 | Mariano Díaz (Alavés) | None listed |
Two footnotes. The club's report puts Yamal's second at 65 minutes while BBC Sport has 64. It was initially ruled out for offside before a VAR review confirmed his run was timed correctly. And the club's narrative does not mention Cancelo on the fourth goal, so that assist rests on the BBC stats sheet alone.
Gordon came on for Yamal, who left to a standing ovation, and chipped in the sixth within minutes of arriving. BBC Sport called it a finish that replicated, and perhaps bettered, Yamal's chip.
The numbers
Raphinha's double took him to 15 league goals in 11 games, equalling a Barcelona benchmark previously reached by César Rodríguez and Lionel Messi. According to BBC Sport, that is four more than second-placed Kylian Mbappé. Yamal is third in the scoring list with 10.
Yamal also does this as the player named third best in the world at the Ballon d'Or awards on Monday, as BBC Sport put it. Two goals against a side that finished the night on 12 points (three wins, three draws, five defeats) is not a final exam. It is still two goals.
A few more figures from the night:
- Attendance: 53,523.
- Goals before half-time: four.
- Flick celebrated his 100th win, according to the club's report.
The tally was close to higher. Karim Adeyemi missed a chance early in the second half, created by Fermín.
A patched-up back line
The line-up is the part worth reading twice. Barcelona had six players unavailable, four of them defenders. Flick gave Brian Fariñas his first-team debut at right-back and paired Frenkie de Jong with Pau Cubarsí in central defence.
The result: one goal conceded, and not a structural one. Mariano Díaz scored in the 84th minute after, according to BBC Sport and Devdiscourse, a loose back pass from Rodri. The club's report calls it a defensive mistake. Either way, it was a gift rather than a breakdown.
Flick rotated once the game was settled, with Marc Bernal replacing Pedri at half-time. He liked what he saw: "This is what I want to see after two defeats. How we reacted, it was good and in the right way," he said.
What to watch
The defence is the open question. Flick said: "We have to survive these two games (before the international break). We don't know who is coming back." Devdiscourse reports uncertainty over the returns of Jules Koundé, Andreas Christensen and Eric García. The reports available do not name the fourth defender who was missing, or give details of the injuries.
The next test is Aston Villa at Camp Nou on Tuesday in the Champions League, which Devdiscourse describes as likely to be a sterner test. A makeshift back four that got away with one error against Alavés will not get the same latitude against better attackers.
In the league, Real Madrid were six points back before visiting Racing Santander on Sunday. Barcelona's lead is real but young. One 6-1 does not erase a Clásico defeat. It does make a fairly loud reply.
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Sources
Meanwhile at the desk
Cancelo gets an assist on the BBC sheet and no mention in the club's own report. Small matter, but I always want to know who is on the paperwork.
Six players out, four of them defenders, and the answer was a debut and a midfielder in central defence. Lovely story. A squad that thin is still a squad that thin.
