Holders Real Madrid suffered a shock 1-0 defeat at Mallorca, damaging their bid to defend the La Liga title as Barcelona extended their lead at the top after defeating Sevilla 3-0 on Sunday.Â
Barcelona went eight points clear of their arch-rivals and second-placed Real Madrid and stretched their La Liga winning streak to five games.
Jordi Alba, Gavi and Raphinhea scored second-half goals to thrash Sevilla following a disappointing outcome for Real earlier in the day.
A bizarre own goal from Nacho in the 13th minute spoiled the game for Real, who couldn’t find the equalizer rest of the way.
Nacho left everyone stunned when he tried to clear a cross and headed the ball into the nets, going over the head of his own goalkeeper.
Real failed to make a breakthrough despite having perfect control and about 70% of the possession. At the hour mark, they had a fantastic opportunity, but Predrag Rajkovic made a brilliant save to deny Marco Asensio a penalty goal.
Meanwhile, at Camp Nou, the host also witnessed Robert Lewandowski’s two attempts getting blocked by Yassine Bounou in the first half.
However, Barcelona rebounded sharply after the break and broke the deadlock in the 59th minute when substitute Franck Kessie showed great skills to set up the ball for Alba, who breached Sevilla’s defence to slot it in from close range.
Gavi doubled the lead twelve minutes later with a beautiful low cross from Raphinha, who then hit the third goal in the 79th minute with a point-blank strike, through Alba’s assist.
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