Barcelona remain perfect to start the season and have made it seven wins out of seven in La Liga thanks to a 3-1 comeback victory away to Sevilla on Saturday night. After a tricky first half in which they fell behind early, the Blaugrana fully dominated the final period and captain Raphinha scored a second hat-trick in four days to lead Barça to another win as the Catalans will go into the international break comfortably on top of the table.
The first half was
played a slower pace given the hot temperatures and high humidity in Seville, so Barça were unable to play as intensely as they wanted. Lamine Yamal hit the post in the Catalans’ first big chance, but the visitors never got out of first gear and struggled to dominate the game.
Sevilla started in a low block but slowly sensed they could take more risks going forward, and took the lead as Youssouf Fofana headed home a cross from the left to put the home team in front. Barça responded right away with their best move of the half as a wonderful through ball from Andreas Christensen found Raphinha in the box, and the captain sat down his defender and passed the ball into the net for a glorious equalizer.
That turned out to be the only moment of quality from Barça, however, as the Blaugrana got into good positions but constantly wasted good attacks in the final third and also lost easy balls in midfield that ignited a few Sevilla counter attacks. One of those counters almost resulted in a clear chance for Félix Correia, but Rodri made a sensational intervention inside the box to avoid further trouble.
The hosts finished the half as the better team and the crowd was alive, and the game was all square and wide open at the break with Barça needing to show plenty of improvement to their overall play in the second half.
Barça showed all the necessary improvement in their play to start the second half: the Catalans kept the ball and moved it with more precision and sharpness in midfield, controlling Sevilla’s counter-attacks and getting a stronghold in the contest for the first all night.
They completed the comeback 10 minutes into the period as Yamal won the ball high up the pitch, fought for it inside the box and eventually assisted Raphinha who headed home his second of the night. Barça lost Christensen to a thigh injury but remained in control, and did a much better job of passing the ball through the Sevilla press.
And it was a great bit of press resistance that led to the third goal as Pedri and Rodri combined in the middle and the ball found Yamal, who released Raphinha all alone with the keeper and the captain dinked it over Vlachodimos to complete a perfect hat-trick and double the Barça lead.
The visitors were able to cruise to the finish as Sevilla offered zero thread in the final minutes, and the final whistle came to give them three more points. Sevilla offered a solid test in the first half but Barça showed their superiority in the second, and secured another quality victory in what is always a tough environment at the Pizjuán.
Well done, boys!
