UD Almeria 1-0 Barcelona: Three days after the European elimination, Barcelona also cut itself in La Liga. Low flyer Almería managed to win against the Catalans for the first time in club history.
After the defeat against Manchester United at Old Trafford, Xavi Hernández changed his team in four places: Eric García, Jordi Alba, Gavi and Ferran Torres entered the squad. Frenkie de Jong kept his place. Barça made an uninspired impression in Andalusia from kick-off and were unable to create many chances in the opening phase.
Almería smelled blood and hurt the visitors in the 24th minute. Luis Suárez passed the ball perfectly to El Bilal Touré. The 21-year-old Malian rushed towards Marc-André ter Stegen and passed the goalkeeper with a devastating shot: 1-0. For Ter Stegen it was only his eighth goal in 24 league matches.
Moments later, the German had to intervene, when Léo Baptistão almost made it 2-0. However, Barcelona was not shocked by that either. Xavi intervened at half-time by bringing Raphinha in for Franck Kessié, but he was unable to turn the game around.
Barça continued to struggle and played a losing game, Gavi suffered another suspension for picking up his fifth yellow card. To the great frustration of Xavi, who was quite excited along the sidelines, the guests did not come to a real final offensive. Battering ram Ronald Araujo was threatening, but in 95 minutes Barcelona only managed one shot on target.
Instead of running out on Real Madrid, which drew against Atlético on Saturday, the lead on the number two is getting smaller. Barça are now seven points clear of La Liga. Almería rises from nineteenth to fifteenth place due to the stunt.
Xavi Hernández calls it the worst game of the season
Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández is quite angry after his team’s surprising loss against Almería (1-0). The coach calls it the worst game of the season.
“I’m really angry about this,” Xavi said. “We played our worst game of the season and we paid the price for that,” said the Barca coach. Who fielded four different players than against Manchester United last Thursday. “We noticed some fatigue, which is why we changed so much. We’ve tried everything. We even sent Ronald Araujo forward, but it wasn’t our day,” he adds.
Xavi put his finger on the sore spot with his team, who came across as uninspired. “We really wanted to win, but there was a lack of passion and enthusiasm to win. That really has to change. We missed a golden opportunity and for that I apologise to the fans. We didn’t participate at all in the first half,” said the manager.
