Barcelona stopped the rot — for the time being — by defeating 18th-place Levante 1-0 at the Camp Nou on Sunday to climb to eighth in LaLiga. The home side put 13 shots on target but the only one that counted was Lionel Messi’s angled finish in the 76th-minute following Frenkie de Jong’s well-weighted ball.
It’d been a terrible week for Barcelona as last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Cádiz was followed by a 3-0 beatdown from Juventus in the Champions League, a result which condemned Barcelona to facing one of Bayern, Dortmund, Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea or PSG in the Round of 16.
With shit hitting the fan in Catalonia, it wasn’t surprising to see El País break a story that — with how quickly time moves in football — really doesn’t mean anything, but one that still got people talking: At the start of the season, manager Ronald Koeman had outed Riqui Puig as a snitch.
Again, the event in question happened months ago (before the Joan Gamper Trophy on Sept. 19), but it just added more fuel to the dumpster fire as Puig impressed against Juve on Tuesday after coming off the bench in the 66th minute. He didn’t make it off the bench on Sunday.
An eventful first half saw Martin Braithwaite, Antoine Griezmann and Messi denied by Aitor Fernández while Clément Lenglet missed a sitter, whereas Levante had one glorious opportunity but Jorge de Frutos shot straight at Marc-André ter Stegen.
Pedri and Francisco Trincão entered in the second 45 as Barcelona searched for the winner, and it arrived following a Levante turnover in midfield that allowed De Jong to feed Messi for an empathic finish.
The 33-year-old has five goals in 11 league games, and this was his 600th goal overall since being handed the No. 10 shirt from Ronaldinho.
Lionel Messi breaks the deadlock against Levante.pic.twitter.com/FAf6fBnOh5
— The18 (@the18com) December 13, 2020
The next week is a stern test for Ronald Koeman as Barcelona welcomes first-place Real Sociedad on Wednesday before also hosting Valencia on Saturday.
