Madrid (AFP)

A mess ! Despite an excellent match from their nuggets Ansu Fati and Riqui Puig, FC Barcelona still stumbled at Celta Vigo 2-2 on Saturday for the 32nd day of Liga, seriously compromising their title chances.

A breath of fresh air, then the storm: numb since the recovery, FC Barcelona returned to their game thanks to a double from Luis Suarez (20th and 67th) and their young Ansu Fati and Riqui Puig, who woke him up from his lethargy despite the goals of Fedor Smolov (50th) and Iago Aspas (88th), with an ingenious free kick, to provisionally take first place (69 pts) ahead of Real Madrid (68 pts), who plays Sunday at the red lantern Espanyol Barcelona ...

After their 0-0 draw in Seville last week, Barça, with this new draw, has undoubtedly opened the way for Madrid's rival for the Liga title: with a match within their reach at the last, the men of Zinédine Zidane could count two points ahead of Barça six games from the end of the championship ... a mattress more seen since February at the top of the ranking!

Against the 16th in Liga, Barça did not show a face of impassive serenity. Several times, the Catalans have seemed to the limit, saved sometimes by the clumsiness and the bad choices of the opponents, as on this last shot of Nolito which could have offered the victory to the locals (87th), or by the firm hands of Marc- André ter Stegen (79th).

This is the paradox of this match. Because on the ground, Barça did the job, signing their best game there since the resumption.

- No paradox -

The nuggets Riqui Puig (20) and Ansu Fati (17) did not score, but proved to be decisive in the temporal rebirth of Barça, asleep since its 0-0 in Seville and its unexpected little success against Bilbao 1- 0 Tuesday.

The midfielder Puig (5 La Liga games with Barça this season) had made three matches, the first start this season, and left winger Fati (18 matches, 5 goals and one assist this season) ) energized the game of Barça ...

And Quique Setién, who made the bet to align them straight away at Balaidos, can thank them: his poker move did not work to pocket the three points, but Barça found his DNA, which is why Setién had been hired in January after the ouster of Ernesto Valverde.

With his double, Uruguayan center-forward Luis Suarez, who underwent surgery on the external meniscus of the right knee on January 12, also confirmed that he had returned to 100%, after taking advantage of the confinement to treat his injury.

The 4th top scorer in the Spanish championship (13 goals) had not yet scored since the post-pandemic recovery. After finding the pitch in half-hour stretches, he chained three matches as a titular player, and ended up regaining his cold realism with this ingenious double on Saturday.

With this setback, the Catalans, feverish leader, can almost say goodbye to their chances of Liga titles ... except huge underperformance of the Madrid rival Sunday (20:00 GMT) at Espanyol, which could revive the suspense in the football saga of summer.

© 2020 AFP