Barcelona and Sevilla have swapped places in the LaLiga Santander table after the Catalans beat the Andalusians 1-0 at the Camp Nou on Sunday night.
Pedri scored the only goal in a game that Barcelona largely dominated, which is exactly what Xavi Hernandez would have wanted after his team’s 4-0 win away at Real Madrid just before the international break.
There was an early scare in the match as Sergio Busquets had a coming together with teammate Gerard Pique which left the midfielder laying prone on the ground, but after a few minutes he was able to come back onto the pitch.
Barcelona were dominating proceedings early on, but a rare Sevilla attack resulted in Anthony Martial trying to send a cross into the box that hit the arm of Ronald Araujo, although the referee decided not to give a penalty as he deemed that the Uruguayan’s arm was by his side.
The remainder of the first half was a rather tepid affair, with neither Barcelona nor Sevilla creating any chances of note, but the second half saw Xavi‘s side take control of the game.
There was an early Erik Lamela chance for Sevilla, but after that Pedri, Ferran Torres and Ronald Araujo all had chances to score. Gerard Pique had a long-distance shot deflect off of Jules Kounde, which forced Bono to rush across his line to make a save, and from the resulting corner the Barcelona centre-back saw his header come back out off the bar.
Then, in the 72nd minute, Barcelona finally found a breakthrough. Pedri shimmied away from a series of Sevilla players on the edge of the box before sending a low shot towards goal, which ended up nestling in the bottom left corner.
Barcelona looked like they could have added to their advantage in the remainder of the match, but Sevilla held out and tried to keep the game close. There was one incident that caused frustration amongst the Sevilla players as Pique was shown a yellow card, despite being the last man, but they missed the clinical edge needed to get a point from this game.
Marca
