Barcelona, with B team players, earned a scant 1-0 win at Mallorca, who were missing four players through COVID-19 themselves.
A COVID-19 outbreak among the Barca squad, coupled with injuries and suspensions, meant several missing players. They travelled to Mallorca with just 11 first-team players available, including two goalkeepers.
And coach Xavi Hernandez listed eight B team players to elevate these numbers, so that Barca drew short in attack.
Ansu Fati, Memphis Depay and Martin Braithwaite were all absent with injuries. Meanwhile, Ousmane Dembele, Abde Ezzalzouli, Philippe Coutinho and five other players missed playing after testing positive for coronavirus (the football news). And finally, new signing Ferran Torres is not yet available.
Luuk De Jong, therefore, was the only first-team forward available and, it turned out, the only one who scored here.
Barcelona, with B Team Players, Earned a Scant 1-0 Win at Mallorca
Flanked by youngsters Ferran Jutgla and Ilas Akhomach, he starred in an impressive first half from Barca. At the very end of this half, in the 44th minute, De Jong scored the singular goal of this football match.
“Luuk’s an exemplary professional. There’s talk about him leaving, but he works hard and sacrifices himself for the team,” Xavi said after the match. “He’s an amazing professional. I am happy with him. Of course, I consider that he could stay, he was useful today. We will see in the future, everything is just a hypothesis for now.”
“I feel delighted, really happy we won today, especially with my goal, which was important for the team. The most important thing is the win. It’s been a tough first half of the season and it’s a good step by winning this game today,” De Jong said after the match.”
Meanwhile, Barcelona’s Eric Garcia praised Ter Stegen for his performance, saying: “We owe 70% of the win to Ter Stegen.”
“He was spectacular,” Garcia continued. “He’s a top goalkeeper. We know he responds in moments like that. Mallorca were pressing and we knew we had to soak it up and we’ve shown we’re able to do that.”
