![\"Lamine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP26031726906129-1769934596.jpg\")
Yamal scores the opening goal against Elche [Jose Breton\/AP Photo]Yamal sets the tone<\/p>\nTeenage star Lamine Yamal opens the scoring after six minutes to set the foundation for a convincing Barcelona victory.<\/p>\n
Published On 1 Feb 20261 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n
share2<\/p>\n
Lamine \u200cYamal scored one goal and created another as Barcelona extended their lead at the \u200dtop of La Liga with a 3-1 victory over Elche on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Barcelona moved to 55 points from 22 matches, four ahead of Real Madrid, who have a game in hand. Elche remained in 12th place with 24 points from 22 games.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Yamal opened the scoring for the visitors \u2060before Alvaro Rodriguez equalised for Elche in an end-to-end first half.<\/p>\n
Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford struck \u200bto complete the win, sparing the blushes of wasteful Barca, who had 30 efforts \u200don goal in the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got three more points. We continue to grow as a team. We haven\u2019t reached our peak yet,\u201d Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe usually have people who finish well. There are times \u200dwhen they fail. \u2060The important thing is that we have them [chances].\u201d<\/p>\n
Yamal scores the opening goal against Elche [Jose Breton\/AP Photo]Yamal sets the tone<\/p>\n
Barcelona took the lead within six minutes when Dani Olmo played Yamal through on goal, and the 18-year-old rounded goalkeeper Inaki Pena to score his 13th goal of the season in all competitions.<\/p>\n
Olmo struck a shot against the crossbar midway through the first half, and within a minute, Elche were level.<\/p>\n
German Valera slipped former Real Madrid forward Rodriguez in behind the Barcelona defence, and he raced clear to score.<\/p>\n
The visitors should have retaken the lead when Torres struck \u200cthe crossbar again from six yards out with a poor miss. The ball rebounded to him, and he then steered it against the post in a comical sequence of play.<\/p>\n
Torres got his goal in 40 minutes when de Jong found space in the box and, rather than shoot himself, laid the ball back for the forward to fire into the roof \u200cof the net from 15 yards.<\/p>\n
It should have been 3-1 \u2060minutes later when Fermin Lopez somehow skied the ball over the crossbar from six yards with the goal gaping.<\/p>\n
Barcelona continued to create chances in the second half, with substitute Rashford guilty of a poor miss when he put his shot wide \u200cwith just the goalkeeper to beat.<\/p>\n
Rashford got his goal in 72 minutes, however, when Yamal\u2019s low cross was not cleared by the Elche defence, allowing the England forward to blast the ball \u200dinto the roof of the net from close range.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarca attack very well,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cThey have very good players, and it wasn\u2019t to be. We will continue working to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teenage star Lamine Yamal opens the scoring after six minutes to set the foundation for a convincing Barcelona…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":558607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,440,1318,2961,224,5337,50,128,1926],"class_list":{"0":"post-558606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-sport"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115995382016172550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}