FC Barcelona are one game closer to the Liga title after seeing off Celta 1-0 on Wednesday, the solitary goal coming from a Lamine Yamal penalty, to maintain their huge nine-point lead over Real Madrid, who had kept up the pressure by winning their own midweek fixture the night before.
With just six games to go, Barça are brilliantly poised to win a 29th Liga title, but nothing is decided yet. There are still games to be won before that becomes sure, and it looks worryingly likely that they may have to play some of those without their most important player.
Penalty at a cost
FC Barcelona took the lead from the penalty spot after 40 minutes, but the goal came at a severe cost. Lamine Yamal, the player who had been brought down in the area, stepped up to take the kick and coolly slotted the ball past Ionut Radu in the Celta goal.
But during the action of scoring, Yamal appeared to pull a muscle in his leg. The teenager collapsed to the ground and would soon be hobbling off the pitch with what is hopefully not as serious an injury as it looked.
Barça had also lost João Cancelo to a thigh problem earlier in the half.
Tight encounter
Until the goal, things had not entirely been in Barça’s hands. Celta are a side chasing another push for Europe next season, and their football showed why. Both goalkeepers were kept busy from the very first minutes, with Joan García forced into a couple of lovely saves.
After Barça went ahead, it would be almost half an hour before play resumed. A spectator required attention and the game was put on hold while the club’s medical services addressed a more important concern than football.
Ferran denied by VAR
In the second half, much more of the play was happening in Celta’s half of the pitch, and Barça finally looked to have doubled their lead when Ferran Torres brilliantly met a Pedri assist on the volley and rifled the ball into the top of the net.
He hadn’t looked offside, and the VAR image didn’t seem to do much to clear up the doubt, but the goal did not stand.
That was the closest the Catalans came to a goal in a second half of more pragmatic than spectacular football, managing their lead well and reducing Celta to nothing more than a few minor attacks that came to nothing.
And there was a lot of merit in that. Celta are not a side to be taken lightly. Given openings, they will take them. Barça kept things impressively tight.
Nine points clear
Not even when the Galicians naturally mounted a late surge on Joan García’s goal could they produce anything to seriously worry the supporters, none of whom were going to be home before midnight, but who would leave with broad smiles on their faces.
One more game down, the 100 per cent league record at home remains intact, and most importantly of all, so does the impressive lead at the top of the table.