FC Barcelona secured a confident 3-0 away win at Alaves who were never in danger. The match winner was Lewandowski, who scored all three goals in the first half.
Compared to the convincing 5-0 win in the Champions League against Young Boys Bern, coach Hansi Flick made only one change: Fort played at right back instead of Koundé.
It was quickly said in the first half: Barcelona started with confidence and immediately took control of the game. With a lot of possession, the Catalans looked for gaps in the Alaves defence. Raphinha’s supposed opening goal in the 5th minute was disallowed for offside, but a little later there was another problem in the net: Lewandowski headed Raphinha’s sharp cross into the net to make it 1-0 (7th).
Lewandowski hat trick in the first half
And the Munich player continued immediately: About 15 minutes later, Raphinha started to sprint and feed Lewandowski, who scored a brace (22 ‘). In this phase, Barcelona put the home team under enormous pressure and created chance after chance: both Raphinha and Lewandowski were denied by Sivera in the 26th minute, a little later the Pole did better and scored the hat-trick after Pedri’s preparatory work (32nd).
In the minutes before the break, the Catalans took their foot off the gas again. This was awarded a penalty shortly before half-time, but Toni Martinez’s header was disallowed because it was offside (45’+1).
Barcelona rules, Alaves is unlucky
After the break the game lost a bit of momentum. Despite the obvious deficit, Alaves did not give up and threw everything into it, but the final precision was often lacking in the final third. Toni Martinez (51st, post) and Vicente (61st) missed the best chances for the home team.
Barcelona, meanwhile, had everything under control Although the Catalans did not capitalize on their attacks as much as they had in the first 45 minutes, there were still a few chances as the game progressed . Antsu Fati in particular kept things going after being substituted and came very close to scoring twice: however, the keeper Sivera was there in the 74th and 77th minutes and prevented the score.
As Mourinho’s header in the final stage was also called back for offside (85th), it ended up being a 3-0 win for Barcelona, who were never in danger and moved back to within three points at the. top of the table. The only one down: Ferran Torres had to leave the field injured in the 6th minute due to pain in the back of his left thigh.