Barcelona suffered their first La Liga home defeat in 53 years against Las Palmas on Saturday afternoon, falling to a 2-1 on the scoreboard at the Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium.
This was a first defeat at the hands of Las Palmas of any kind since 1991, with the Catalans being chased by some of their former players in the opposite league.
Chief among them was Sandro RamÃrez, who gave the visitors a surprise, but undeserved, at the start of the second half. Jasper Cillessen ensured that Barça’s xG of 2.32 was not met decisively, with Mika Marmol also impressive at left-back.
Raphinha equalized for Hansi Flick’s side, but Fabio Silva quickly put Las Palmas into a lead which they ultimately did not relinquish.
How the game developed
The home team’s dominance of the ball was to be expected from the start, but Las Palmas threatened a couple of times in the opening stages, when Sandro’s cut was not met and shortly after, Silva and Javier Muñoz went lose the ball in the area.
There was a strong hand from Cillessen in the Las Palmas goal to deny FermÃn López in the middle of it, though the former Barça striker then flicked in a cross that almost put Pau Cubarsi and Gavi on target. FermÃn also delivered his lines at a good time, and things didn’t quite click. After half an hour, Cubarsi couldn’t stretch enough to connect with Raphinha’s inviting free-kick.
Even with Barcelona controlling possession, it was no backs-to-the-wall job for the island visitors as Alberto Moleiro forced Inaki Pena into action, albeit a relatively routine save , and Muñoz fired wide with a shot from the goal.
The best chances of the first half both came for Barcelona shortly before the break, Cillessen saving low to his right from the edge of the Pedri area and Raphinha turning in the rebound from an offside position , and then Raphinha clipped the top of the bar after being played in by Gavi and clipped onto his favored left foot.
Barça paid the price after the restart for not taking advantage of those opportunities when Las Palmas made the team’s final move to take the lead. The ball started in his own six-yard box, playing out of that tight space and up the pitch. Kirian RodrÃguez made the final pass to Sandro, who then beat Pena from the right corner of the area.
The back-to-back response was a pressing onslaught that saw Raphinha equalize after an hour, a moment of brilliance from the Brazilian rather than any lapse from Las Palmas. After moving into the middle, he collected the ball 20 yards out and powered a shot into the bottom corner.
But the parity did not last long as a single pass from Muñoz in midfield took Barcelona’s defense out of the game. Silva advanced on goal and managed to stay calm to finish out of Pena’s reach.
As time ticked on, Cillessen made more saves to deny Lamine Yamal, making his return from injury off the bench, and Raphinha, the latter, a spectacular header over the bar. Stoppage-time appeals for a penalty after a light tackle on Pau Victor rightly fell on deaf ears, while Robert Lewandowski having to check his movement if a square ball was played behind him gave Alex Suarez just enough time to come back and block what was threatening to be. a spectacular match.
Founded on November 29, 1899, Barcelona celebrated its 125th anniversary, a century and a quarter – and a day – after Joan Gamper hosted a meeting attended by the first group of players from the club that changed the history of football .
The choice of the Barça team here was a nod to that. This season’s blue and red home shirt is already inspired by the year 1899, as it was for the centenary shirt in 1999, but the club took it a step further for the anniversary match ditching the blue shorts for white, which were the norm until 1910.
Unfortunately, what should have been a home banker against a team struggling at the wrong end of the table left a sour taste on the occasion.
Barcelona has really missed Lamine Yamal. Remarkably, they have won every League game this season that has started (11) and none they haven’t won (4).
The generational 17-year-old sprained his ankle during the Champions League win against Red Star Belgrade at the start of November and was conspicuously absent as the Catalans picked up just one point from their subsequent games in the League against Real Sociedad and Celta de Vigo. As a substitute, he couldn’t prevent Barça from collapsing in a 4-2 defeat at Osasuna in September and the same happened here.
Yamal appeared at half-time in place of Pablo Torre, which seemed to sharpen Barcelona’s attacking performance. But after the better part of a month away, it was clear he wasn’t up to speed and couldn’t do it all alone this time.
What appeared to be a fairly innocuous body check from Sandro midway through the first half left Alejandro Balde on the ground. The Barcelona left-back grabbed his opponent’s shoulder up to his throat and was visibly struggling to catch his breath, even throwing up.
Balde was taken off to be replaced by Gerard Martin, who actually brought down Sandro when there was a similar attempt to block his way before the end of the half. Welcome news later emerged during the interval that the player had recovered.
