Barcelona vs Sevilla 3-0, Barca slide eight points clear at the top of the table with a dominant win at home.
Referee: José María Sánchez
Barcelona extended its unbeaten streak in all competitions to 15 games, remain unbeaten in 2023 and are now eight points clear at the top of the La Liga table thanks to a sparkling 3-0 win over Sevilla at Spotify’s Camp Nou on Sunday night. The Blaugrana were the best team all evening, earning victory with excellent attacking football and another great defensive performance in a very complete home performance.
Barça did not start the game well as Sergio Busquets injured his ankle five minutes into the match, but the Blaugrana eventually got into a good rhythm and began to dominate possession and dominate the Sevilla half.
The Catalans often struggle to attack a five-man defence, but they were successful against the rojiblancos thanks to their great passing, quick and sharp passing and excellent movement between the lines to create space and find opportunities for crosses and shots.
Barça had three great chances with a header from Ronald Araujo and two shots from Robert Lewandowski, but a combination of poor focusing and a clever save from Sevilla goalkeeper Bono prevented the blaugrana from scoring.
As Barca approached the end of the half, the visitors finally showed signs of life and started to make some progress, but did not pose a threat to the Barca defence. The hosts lost some intensity in the final minutes and clearly needed the half-time whistle to pull themselves together at half-time.
At half time, Barça were a better team and should have taken the lead, but they left all the work to be done in the second half.
Jorge Sampaoli made two changes at the break to leave his team without a striker and put 10 men behind the ball to try and hold on and invited all the pressure from Barça, who had to play against a parked bus to try and get the tick. find.
Barca showed a lot of patience attacking those tight defences, but they were intense and quick on the passes and started to threaten a lot with running backs, dangerous crosses and midfielders firing from deep inside the box.
It took the Blaugrana barely 13 minutes to break through the back line of Sevilla and find the gap with a well-developed goal: after long possession and a skilful cross from Andreas Christensen in the penalty area, Raphinha found Franck Kessie with his back to goal and the Ivorian played a great pass to Jordi Alba who found the corner and put the locals ahead.
Sevilla responded with a change of formation, a higher line of defense and began to press high up the field to try and force Barça to make mistakes, but before these changes took effect, the blaugrana scored a second goal: Jules Kounde played a great ball across the top to find the point for Raphinha, who opened Sevilla’s back line with a fantastic pass to find Gavi at the far post for the easiest touch.
Barça didn’t let go of the accelerator and looked for more goals to seal the victory and found the third 10 minutes from the end thanks to a sensational pass from Frenkie De Jong, an assist from Jordi Alba and a goal from Raphinha. to triple the advantage and secure the three points.
The home side simply ran out of time and concentrated on keeping a clean sheet in the dying seconds and the final whistle gave Barca a further three points and extended their lead at the top to eight points after just 20 league games. This team was very close to their best night, even without Busquets and Ousmane Dembélé, and it could get scary soon if they keep playing like this against better teams and getting healthy.
Lineups:
Barcelona (4-3-3):
Ter Stegen; Kounde, Araujo (Alonso), Christensen, Alba (Balde ); Pedri, Busquets (Kessie), De Jong; Raphinha (Ferran), Lewandowski, Gavi (Fati)
Subs not used: Peña,Tenas, García, Roberto, Alarcón
Sevilla (5-4-1):
Bono; Badé, Gudelj, Rekik; Montiel, Jordán, Gueye (Fernando), Acuña (Ocampos); Torres (Gil), En-Nesyri (Lamela), Rakitic
Subs not used: Dmitrović, Flores, Nianzou, Álvarez, Suso, Rafa Mir, Gil
Scorers:
70′ Gavi
79′ Rapinha
Yellow Cards:
Match Stats:
