Real Valladolid 3-1 Barcelona: Barcelona ran into a slip on Tuesday evening. Xavi’s formation, which has already claimed the national title with force majeure, lost against tail team Real Valladolid 3-1. The home club could use the three-pointer particularly well: with this result, the team leaves the relegation zone.
Champion Barcelona embarrasses itself at the hands of relegation candidate
It is not as if trainer Xavi had sent a fanatic team onto the field in Estadio José Zorrilla, but halfway through the first half the lackluster champion was already 2-0 behind. Already in the second minute, Andreas Christensen headed a cross from the left past the keeper, the problem here was that the Dane outwitted his own goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen with his extremely beautiful headbutt.
Eric Garcia committed an alleged foul in his own box after twenty minutes, Canadian Cyle Larin even put his team 2-0: crazy scenes in the stadium of Valladolid. Barça set up and had some chances in the remainder of the first half. However, the damage was partly beyond repair: goalkeeper Ter Stegen did not match the clean sheet record in La Liga history tonight. Remarkably enough, the German was substituted at halftime.
Second half
In the second half, Barcelona, despite having a lot of ball possession, did not create any great opportunities. After Valladolid had already threatened with the third goal, it was still hit in a counter fifteen minutes before the end, Gonzalo Plata was allowed to finish. Painful for Barcelona: now the team is no longer in the race to become the least passed ever in La Liga history. The Blaugrana, where Frenkie de Jong played ninety minutes, had started the day with fifteen goals against. The record, which stands at eighteen, can only be matched after this match.
The fact that Robert Lewandowski, on the instructions of De Jong, scored an honorary goal, was only important in terms of numbers, no matter how beautiful the goal was. Barcelona still have to face Real Mallorca and Celta de Vigo before the holiday starts, and must not concede a goal in those matches to go down in the history books. Valladolid, which won again after five defeats in a row, still plays relegation encounters against Alméria and Getafe, the new number eighteen in La Liga.
