Barcelona drew 1-1 against Espanyol in a controversial Catalan derby in which both teams finished with ten men.
With Real Madrid’s win against Real Valladolid on Friday night, a win for Barcelona would have seen them lead their arch-rivals by two points at the top of the table, but the Camp Nou side could only grab one point. of the game.
Barcelona starts strong
The locals started the match strongly with Marcos Alonso opening the scoring with a header in the seventh minute.
Andreas Christensen headed a corner into the path of Alonso, who headed home to give Barcelona the perfect start to the derby.
The hosts should have been out of sight in the opening twenty minutes, but they squandered several glorious chances to extend their lead.
Ansu Fati squandered two chances, while Raphinha squandered a glorious one-on-one opportunity as the hosts failed to make their dominance count and headed into halftime with a one-goal lead.
Espanyol barely got a foothold in the game with Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Ander ter Stegen hardly having anything to do in the first half.
The locals lowered their level in the second half, playing with much less intensity and hardly showing any urgency to get the second goal. Robert Lewandowski headed in just a meter off in the 56th minute after a fantastic cross from Alonso.
A dull second half suddenly came to life when referee Mateu Lahoz began handing out unnecessary yellow cards to the players.
Espanyol had a golden opportunity to regain parity after striker Joselu was brought down by Alonso in the 73rd minute and the Spaniard made no mistake to tie the game.
red cards
Four minutes later, Jordi Alba was sent off for disagreeing while Espanyol also had Vincius Souza, and Leandro Cabrera saw red within minutes. However, after a VAR control, Cabrera’s red card was annulled, which rounded off Lahoz’s bad refereeing.
The match saw the referee draw 14 yellow cards along with the two sending offs.
Lewandowski had a chance to grab all three points after an assist, but Espanyol goalkeeper Álvaro Fernández denied the Polish striker to give the visiting team a point on their return home.
Barcelona enters the new year at the top of the goal difference table with 38 points in 15 games.
Photo credit: IMAGO / Pressinphoto
