Whichever way we look at it, this is a very exciting moment indeed to be a Bar\u00e7a fan!<\/p>\n
Goalless first half<\/p>\n
As for the game, although Bar\u00e7a had much more of the ball in the first half, with Lewandowski, Dani Olmo and Roony Bardghji all getting very tasty chances early on, Osasuna looked worryingly comfortable as they lapped up the blaugrana pressure and grew more and more into the game as half-time approached.<\/p>\n
Ante Budimir, no stranger to causing Bar\u00e7a problems over the years, capped an impressive run by knocking the ball onto the post, and moments later forced a brilliant save out of Joan Garcia.<\/p>\n
Osasuna, now safe from relegation trouble and instead eyeing a late bid for European places, were proving to be a very tough nut to crack.<\/p>\n
Lewy heads home<\/p>\n
The second half was also played almost entirely in Osasuna\u2019s half, but dominant as Bar\u00e7a were, real chances were even fewer and farther between than they had been in the first.<\/p>\n
Hansi Flick opted to stir things up a bit by making a number of changes. And what changes they were.<\/p>\n
One of the incomers was Marcus Rashford, the architect of the goal that finally broke the deadlock.<\/p>\n
Poised on the edge of the Osasuna area, the Englishman had what seemed like an age to ponder his next move. He finally made it. From a standing position, a perfect chip onto the head of the advancing Lewandowski, and all the Pole had to do was nod the ball home.<\/p>\n
![\"_MGA3832\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/_MGA3832.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Ferran makes sure<\/p>\n
Moments later, another of the substitutes, Ferran Torres, was on the end of a delightful through ball from Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez, and the chants of \u2018campeones, campeones\u2019 started ringing out from the away end.<\/p>\n
A dozy game had burst to life. Osasuna weren\u2019t going to be beaten that easily, and they too had a substitute to thank for the goal that extended their scoring run at El Sadar to 38 games. Budimir\u2019s replacement, Ra\u00fal Garc\u00eda, headed home a cross, and we were back to one goal in it.<\/p>\n
For the first time in the game, Bar\u00e7a\u2019s defence was under sustained pressure as the resurgent home side pushed for an equaliser. It mattered so much to Osasuna that even goalkeeper Sergio Herrera joined their attack for the final minutes, but it would be to no avail.<\/p>\n
Bar\u00e7a held on and are returning as 2-1 winners to a Catalonia where a lot of cava is going to be sold tomorrow. Whether it gets uncorked tomorrow or will have to be saved for later is something that depends on the outcome of a game being played in the Catalan capital at 9pm CEST. Watch this space\u2026<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Liga 2025\/26 was already very, very close to being won before Saturday\u2019s game, and it\u2019s even closer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,483],"class_list":{"0":"post-15994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}