Barcelona, the leaders, restored the nine-point difference with its direct pursuers, Real Madrid, by defeating Athletic Bilbao on Sunday evening, with a goal without a response, for the 25th round of the Spanish Football League championship.
Barcelona owes victory to its Brazilian wing, Rafinha, who scored the only goal in the second minute of stoppage time for the first half with a powerful shot, after an elaborate pass from captain Sergio Busquets.
With this victory, Barcelona raised its score to 65 points at the top of the standings, ahead of its rivals Real Madrid, who has 56 points, one week before the confrontation between them at the “Camp Nou” next Sunday in the 26th round.
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Rafinha opens the scoring for Barcelona with a clever pass from Busquets
Which is more beautiful, the pass or the goal?
😍# Spanish_League #beINLiga #LaLiga pic.twitter.com/Ewj0tnUsk9
- beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS) March 12, 2023
Thanks to this victory, Barcelona took a big step towards regaining the La Liga title, which has been absent from its coffers for 3 seasons, after achieving its 21st victory in the championship during the current season and the ninth in its last ten matches in the competition.
On the other hand, Bilbao's credit, which did not win the fourth consecutive match, stopped at 33 points in ninth place.
Brazilian Rafinha continued to score the net for the second match in a row, and despite that, German Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Barcelona goalkeeper, deserved to be the undisputed champion of the match, after he blocked many of Bilbao's sure chances to equalise, to secure his team's obtaining the three points from the match. Rival stronghold.
9 goals,
9 assists pic.twitter.com/TdUtSFcCwo
- FC Barcelona (@fcbarcelona_ara) March 12, 2023
The match was full of excitement and clubbing, in which the referee resorted to the “VAR” video technique more than once, most notably in calculating Barcelona’s goal after he initially indicated that Rafinha was in an offside position.
Two minutes before the end of the regular time of the match, Bilbao scored a beautiful goal through Ghanaian Inaki Williams, but the return to video technology confirmed that there was a handball at the beginning of the game on Iker Munyan, to be canceled.