Barcelona’s fortunes in Spanish La Liga are good, to say the least. They are on the way to the title from the top of the points table, But most of the wins they have been accumulating to climb to the top of the points table have come by just 1-0 goals. If it was not a goal in the respective matches! Then it was not possible for them to come to the present position.
Barca won on Sunday night as well. Javi Hernandez’s side returned home with a 1-0 win at Athletic Bilbao. The only goal in Barca’s victory came from the feet of Brazilian star Rafinha.
Barca was basically saved by VAR. Their goal came courtesy of VAR. Another Bilbao goal was disallowed due to VAR. Otherwise, Barca would have to leave the field in defeat.
In this victory, Barcelona once again maintained a gap of 9 points with Real Madrid. At the end of 25 matches, Barca achieved 65 points. Real have only 56 points in the same number of matches. The third place is Atletico Madrid with 45 points and in the 9th place is Athletic Bilbao with 33 points from 25 matches.
Barca could definitely lose 2 points in this match. But thanks to VAR, they survived. Athletic Bilbao scored in the 88th minute of the match.
Maté Bilbao celebrates an 88th-minute equalizer through Inaki Williams. Two minutes later, VAR declared the goal illegal. Bilbao’s Iker Munyain has the ball in his hands during possession. As a result, the goal is disallowed.
However, before that, Barca got the winning goal thanks to VAR. In the added time of the first half (45+1 minutes), Rafinha took a shot from a pass by Sergio Busquets. The ball goes into the Athletico Bilbao net. But the referee disallowed the goal on the pretext of offside. After seeing the VAR, the referee was forced to judge Rafinha’s goal as correct.
From the beginning of the match in the field of Bilbao, both teams played attack after attack. In the 17th minute, Barca star Robert Lewandowski broke through Bilbao’s defense and attacked. However, the shot taken by the Polish star was blocked by the Bilbao goalkeeper. In the 32nd minute, Bilbao took the first test of the Barca goalkeeper. Ter Stegan was also a wall for Bilbao.
Despite several attacks in the second half, Bilbao could not change the result of the match. As a result, Javi Hernandez’s disciples left the field with a 1-0 victory.
IHS/
