Barcelona (AFP)

Barcelona lost a great opportunity on Thursday to take the lead in the provisional La Liga standings when they were beaten at home by Granada 2-1 in a late match in Matchday 33 after leading the score at half-time thanks to a goal from Lionel Messi.

What could have been a walk in the park has turned into a nightmare for Barça, who therefore remains 3rd in the championship tied on points (71) with Real Madrid two points behind the leader, Atlético Madrid.

It was successively Darwin Machis (63rd) and Jorge Molina (79th) who gave Granada the advantage after Messi opened the scoring in 23rd, his 26th league goal, on a nice pass from Antoine Griezmann.

With five days remaining, all teams now have the same number of matches before Matchday 34 which begins on Friday.

But Barcelona's failure on Thursday does not work in its favor as the Catalan club have never held the lead in the league since the start of the season.

The Blaugrana fell asleep after the opener and let a rough Granada side gradually gain confidence and win.

Machis agreed to shoot between the legs of Marc-André ter Stegen bringing his team back to equality before veteran (39) Jorge Molina gave him the advantage of a superb header.

Barça's annoyance did not only manifest itself on the pitch.

His coach Ronald Koeman received a red card in the 65th minute and ended the solitary match in the stands dictating his instructions over the phone to his assistants.

Barça have two difficult matches ahead of them, away to Valencia on Sunday and then against the Madrid leader on May 8 at Camp Nou.

Besides the pride of victory, Granada is also getting closer to a European place.

Currently 8th, the Reds and Whites are only 4 points behind 7th, Villareal, who is playing just after Thursday in the semi-final first leg of the Europa League against Arsenal.

Diego Martinez's team can therefore still hope to invite themselves to the Europa League next year after having already created a surprise this year by reaching the quarter-finals (defeat against Manchester United).

© 2021 AFP