(AFP) Leaders Barcelona survived a frustrating draw when the video assistant referee canceled a goal for Athletic Bilbao and gave its Catalan guest a 1-0 victory, in the twenty-fifth stage of the Spanish Football League on Sunday.
With this victory, which Barcelona achieved with the goal of Brazilian Rafinha, it strengthened its lead with 65 points, restoring the nine-point difference with its second rival, Real Madrid, who will meet next week in the El Clasico at the “Camp Nou” stadium.
This is Barcelona's second successive victory in the league, and he played a difficult match away from home in the absence of his Uruguayan defender Ronald Araujo due to suspension.
Indeed, the Catalan club opened the scoring at the end of the first half through Rafinha, who received inside the area an elaborate pass from Sergio Busquets and slotted the ball into the net (45 + 2). The referee returned to “VAR” to verify the correctness of the goal after the line referee raised the offside flag.
However, the second half was difficult for the guests, with a pressing attack from Bilbao, amid the brilliance of German goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen on more than one occasion.
Two minutes before the end of the regular time of the match, Bilbao scored a beautiful goal from a single goal by the Ghanaian-Spanish Iñaki Williams, but the return to video technology confirmed the presence of a handball at the beginning of the game on Iker Munyan, to be canceled.
The two leaders tackled two balls from Bilbao amid defensive arrogance from Barcelona, so the Catalan club achieved an important victory.
Real Sociedad continued wasting points and faltered for the second match in a row when they drew 1-1 with Real Mallorca.
This is the fourth consecutive match in which Sociedad has failed to win (three draws and a loss), and it has only won once in its last nine league matches. Thus, the Basque club's efforts to ensure its position among the top four are in vain.
This tie comes to Sociedad after it also lost in the first leg of the final price of the “Europa League” competition, with two clean goals, against Italian Roma and its Portuguese coach, Jose Mourinho, who will visit the Basques next Thursday in the second leg.
Despite this frustrating draw, Sociedad is still in fourth place with 45 points, similar to Atletico Madrid III, who is a guest on Girona on Monday, while Mallorca is in tenth place with 32 points.
The match witnessed the dismissal of Real Sociedad captain Mikel Moreno in the 90th minute with a direct red card, five minutes before the final whistle.
Sociedad took the lead early on through Carlos Fernandez with a beautiful shot from inside the penalty area in the third minute, before the hosts equalized through South Korean Lee Kang-In (50).
On the other hand, the struggling Seville achieved an important victory over Almeria 2-1, to rise to thirteenth place, two points above the relegation zone, leaving its guest in the penultimate nineteenth place.
Sevilla suffered a severe loss in the last stage against Atletico Madrid 1-6.
Argentine coach Jorge Sampaoli made five changes to the squad that beat Turkish Fenerbahçe 2-0 in the first leg of the Europa League final on Thursday, in an attempt to revive his team.
But Almeria took an early lead, with the goal of Sergio Akemi from Equatorial Guinea (2), who was injured after ten minutes with his Malian colleague Bilal Toure (12), before the Moroccan goalkeeper of Seville, Yassin Bono, caught up with them after a collision with fellow Brazilian Alex Telles (37).
Sevilla indicated, through his Twitter account, that Bono had been transferred to the hospital and would undergo examinations.
And when the first half was taking its last breath, Seville returned to its home stadium, “Ramon Sanchez Pisjuan,” with the goal of Argentine Lucas Ocampos (45 + 2 from a penalty kick), before the other Argentine Eric Lamela (73) gifted him the three-point goal and victory.