Barcelona came into Saturday’s game with a win over PSG on Wednesday night in the UEFA Champions League competition. With a 2-0 win over PSG, they looked ahead to Saturday’s match against Espanyol to get the three points and keep their first place cushion in La Liga table.
Barcelona was able to win 2-0 against Espanyol, putting them five points ahead of Real Madrid. Goals from Neymar Jr. and Lionel Messi secured the match. Neymar got his 19th goal of the season and is three goals behind third place Antoine Griezmann. Messi got his 36th goal of the match, three goals behind Cristiano Ronaldo and four to surpass him and be in the run for the Pichichi title.
Xavi Hernandez made his 500th appearance for Barcelona when he was brought in for Andres Iniesta and would be remembered as a legend for the Catalan team after this season.
The first goal came on the 13th minute when Messi crossed a ball to Jordi Alba on the left side of the field. Alba was able to cross it inside the danger zone in which we saw Luis Suarez let the ball go through and let Neymar get to the ball. Neymar easily tapped in the ball in and made it a 1-0 game.
Messi was able to make it a 2-0 game in the 25th minute. Suarez and Iniesta were able to play some beautiful passing game. Suarez found Iniesta outside the ball and Iniesta was able to chip it over to Suarez. Suarez then chipped it over to Messi on the left side of the field and was able to score from a difficult angle and through the legs of goalkeeper Casilla.
The second half saw less action for both sides, including Alba being sent off in a matter of 5 seconds. He was shown a yellow card for complaining that the ref did not give him a free-kick and then seconds later was shown the second yellow card, sending him off for the rest of the match. Espanyol tried to pressure a ten man Barcelona team, but could not get through and ended up losing 2-0.
Barcelona will be facing Getafe on Tuesday night as Espanyol faces Granada on Thursday. They will also have an easy schedule ahead of them in La Liga as they then face Cordoba on Saturday. They will then face Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-finals.
The man of the match goes out to Andres Iniesta, who was able to assist on both goals and had a great performance throughout the match until he was subbed in by manager Luis Enrique for Xavi Hernandez.
