Barcelona remain unbeaten to start the season and have won a third straight game in all competitions thanks to a dominant 3-0 win over Getafe at the Estadi Johan Cruyff on Sunday night. The Blaugrana were by far the better side from start to finish and scored three excellent goals to secure the victory and finish the weekend in second place in the La Liga table.
FIRST HALF
The opening 45 minutes were completely dominated by Barça, who played some excellent attacking football with crisp passing, great
off-ball movement and tons of creativity to break down Getafe’s 5-3-2 formation. The visitors didn’t know what to do to stop the Blaugrana, who could very easily have scored three or four times in the opening period.
They had to settle for just two, but both were great goals: the first came 15 minutes into the action and started with a great pass from Raphinha to find the run of Dani Olmo, who pulled off a brilliant backheel assist for Ferran Torres who smashed it home to give the Catalans the lead.
The second came 10 minutes before halftime on a counter-attack when Raphinha played Ferran all alone, and Torres showed excellent composure to place a beautiful shot from outside the box into the bottom corner to double his tally. In between those two goals came even more moments of danger, with Robert Lewandowski coming close a couple of times but not finding the net.
Ferran had a big chance to complete his hat-trick before the break thanks to a glorious pass over the top from Pedri to find him one-on-one with the keeper, but Ferran fired a rocket against the crossbar and wasted a great chance.
Barça were so dominant that Getafe became visibly frustrated and started to resort to the disgusting tactics that make them one of the most unwatchable teams in the sport: the visitors targeted Jules Kounde with a series of awful tackles, and went after Raphinha time and time again to try and provoke the Brazilian into getting a second yellow card.
The halftime whistle thankfully came without any major trouble for Barça, who looked in the mood to add more goals and properly humiliate a dirty Getafe side.
SECOND HALF
Getafe coach José Bordalás made a triple change at halftime and his team had a good start to the second period, as they were focused on trying to play actual football and had two solid chances to score in the first five minutes of the period.
Barça weren’t quite as sharp as they were in the first half, but still managed to create opportunities and increased their lead at the hour mark when Marcus Rashford, who had replaced Raphinha at halftime, chased down a long ball from the back and assisted Olmo, who found the net with a nice finish and sealed the win for the home team.
Hansi Flick was able to make substitutions to rest some of his big names in the final minutes and Barça cruised to the finish as the final whistle came to give the Catalans all three points.
Getafe were as dirty and annoying as ever, but Barça fully dominated and had a much more comfortable night than usual against them. This was a pretty good way to end a pretty good week, and Barça look more and more solid with every game.
Well done, boys!
Barcelona: Garcia; Kounde, Eric, Christensen, Martín (Araujo 84’); De Jong (Casadó 60’), Pedri (Roony 76’); Raphinha (Rashford 46’), Olmo, Ferran (Fermín 60’); Lewandowski
Goals: Ferran (15’, 34’), Olmo (62’)
Getafe: Soria; Kiko, Abqar, Duarte, Djené (Davinchi 46’), Rico; Martín (Muñoz 46’), Milla, Arambarri (Da Costa 70’); Liso (Sancris 80’), Mayoral (Kamara 46’)
Goals: None
