FC Barcelona Rising To The Top
By Tanko Bauka
FC Barcelona has drawn the first blood in this year’s, Spanish LA Liga EL-CLASICO’s first leg, crushing Real Madrid 4-0, thereby inflicting the current Spanish Champion’s first LA Liga defeat in over a year.
The encounter offers Real Madrid the opportunity to extend their unbeaten run to 43 in the Spanish LA Liga, which would have equalled the record set by their arch-rival FC Barcelona between April 2017 and May 2018.
But their hope of doing so was dashed by a devastating display in the second half by FC Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu in an encounter broadcast to over one hundred and fifty countries with 21 television stations transmitting live inside the main bowl of the stadium and watched by millions of football fans around the world.
Real Madrid constantly menaced FC Barcelona but could only manage one shot in the whole duration of the first half despite the nervousness of the FC Barcelona goalkeeper Inaki Pana, which forced him to make many mistakes, especially passing the ball to his team.
But all these was put behind them in the second half as FC Barcelona came smoking and in scintillating form opening the score in the 54 minutes with Robert Lewandowski who doubled immediately in the 56 minutes and in the 77 minutes, FC Barcelona’s sensational teenager, Lamine Yamal scored his first EL-CLASICO goal while Raphinha also scored his first EL-CLASICO goal in the 84 minutes to complete the demolition of Real Madrid.
Elsewhere in the English Barclays Premier League, Liverpool FC came from behind to snatch a two-all draw with Arsenal FC at the Emirate stadium in London and in the process relinquished the top spot position in the league table to Manchester City which laboured to beat Southampton 1 -0 through an Erling Haaland goal in the first half at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
The defending Champion, Manchester City tops the league table with 22 points, Liverpool FC with 21 points while Arsenal occupy the third position with 18 points, Chelsea FC also put behind them the defeat suffered at the hand of Liverpool by beating Newcastle United 2-1 with a goal each from Nicolas Jackson and Cole Palmer while West Ham defeated wasteful Manchester United 2-1 to pile up more pressure on their under-fire manager, Eric Ten Hag.
Manchester United should have settled the match in the first half at the London Stadium but lacked the cutting edge to punish West Ham.
In the Italian Serie A, it was a dramatic finish between Inter Milan and Juventus at the San Siro as both teams played out a pulsating 4-4 draw while Atalanta, with Ademola Lookman spearheading the attacking line for Atalanta, put 6-1 goals past their opponents Hellas Verona.
Lazio also picked up the three maximum points against Genoa with a 3-0 goal win.
Lazio continued to lead the table after beating Lacce 1-0.
In the German Bundesliga, Vincent Kompany’s boys, Bayern Munich, continued their dominance in the league after being humble by FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday travelled to take on VFL Bochum and came unscathed by beating their host by 5 unreply goals to return top of the league table.
Results across Europe
English Barclays Premier League
Leicester 1- Nothingham Forest 3
Aston Villa 1-AFC Bournemouth 1
Brentford 4- Ispwich Town 3
Brighton Albion 2- Wolves 2
Manchester City 1- Southampton 0
Everton 1 – Fulham 1
Chelsea 2- Newcastle 1
Crystal Palace 1- Tottenham 0
West Ham 2- Manchester United 1
Arsenal 2- Liverpool 2
Spanish LA Liga
Espanyol 1- Sevilla 2
Real Valladolid 1- Villarreal 2
Rayo Vallacano 1- Deportivo Alaves 0
Las Palmas 1- Girona 0
Real Madrid 0- FC Barcelona 4
Laganes 3-Celta Vigo 0
Gatafe 1- Valencia 1
Real Betis 1- Atlectico Madrid 0
Real Sociedad 0- Osasuna 2
Italian Serie A
Udinese 2- cagliari 0
Torino 1- Como 0
Napoli 1- Lacce 0
Atalanta 6- Hellas Verona 1
Parma 1- Empoli 1
Lazio 3- Genoa 0
AC Monza 2- Venezia 2
Inter Milan 4- Juventus 4
Fiorentina 5- AS Roma 1
German Bundesliga
Mainz 05 1- Monchenglabach 1
Stuttgart 2- Holstein Kiel 1
RB Leipzig 3- SC Freiburg 1
FC Augsburg 2- Dortmund 1
FC St Pauli 0- Wolfsburg 0
Werder Bremen 2- Leverkusen 2
VFL Bochum 0- Bayern Munich 5
Union Berlin 1- Eintrach Frankfurt 1
Heidenheim 0- Hoffenheim 0
