Fc Barcelona continued their unbeaten start to the season with a 4-0 victory against Cadiz despite the imperfections, courtesy of the exuberant firepower they possess up front.
Fc Barcelona continued their unbeaten start to the season in impressive fashion, bringing their record to five straight wins after the disappointing draw against Rayo Vallecano in the league opener. Xavi Hernández is showing faith in his entire squad, rotating players in and out, testing different combinations, and leading the team to excellent results.
Xavi mixed things up for today, with nine changes from the side which played in the Champions League on Tuesday. Hector Bellerín, Araújo, Balde, Busquets, Raphinha, and Ferran were back into the starting line-up. Piqué and Memphis got a start as well.
The Nuevo Mirandilla was sold out. 25,033 fans crammed in. Cadiz started the game off on the front foot with Barcelona’s defense in all sorts of bother. An early cross didn’t quite fall to Sobrino but caused the visitors a bit of an early scare.
Cadiz continued their frenzied pace up until the 10th minute when things started slowing down for the home team and Barca came eerily close to scoring with the woodwork coming into play. Raphinha found himself free on the right at the top of the box. He let the ball fly past Ledesma but the shot cannoned off the post!
The game was still open until the 25th minute with Bellerín having to be a little careful as the referee Cerro Grande was clearly not in the mood for his explanations regarding the Premier League-style fouls. With the physical play, both sides were struggling to put together any free-flowing moves.
The first half, for the most part of it, looked like an evenly matched affair despite Barcelona’s 74.9% possession. Cádiz had not only kept Barcelona at bay, but they also created a couple of decent chances as well. The only worry at the time for Cádiz was that whenever they looked at the Barca dugout, they saw Robert Lewandowski looking back at them and smiling.
Cadiz started the second half the same way they started off the first half. Five minutes in and Xavi instructed Lewandowski, Dembélé, and Pedri to start warming up and pondering when to unleash them.
Ten minutes into the second half and Barca magically broke the deadlock. Making a late run inside the box, De Jong initiated the scoring as he capitalized on Raphinha and Gavi’s quick combination – a well-deserved goal.
Around the 57th minute, Xavi decided to shake things up and subbed in Dembele, Pedri, and Lewandowski. Dembele started causing danger straight away as he edged up on the left and sent a ball in that Ledesma just managed to grab with Lewandowski lurking behind him like an apex predator at a water hole.
Barcelona looked like a totally different team after the substitutions. With Barcelona looking really dangerous and Cádiz almost out of gas, it was the 65th minute when Barca showed their firepower and struck the second goal of the night. Lewandowski it was. Rafinha’s cross was knocked onto Ledesma at the same moment as De Jong came flying in. The ball moved across the face of the goal, where Lewandowski, smelling blood, was quick to react. That’s six goals for Robert Lewandowski in five games in LaLiga. The Pichichi talk has already started.
Suddenly around the 81st minute, the referee stopped the game. There was a medical emergency in the stands. Ledesma had gone sprinting over to get a defibrillator and hurled it up to the people attending to the individual in distress.
With the game stopped for 20 minutes, complete silence fell to the ground with scenes of shock and some of the players praying. There was news that the medics were continuing with CPR and a cardiologist in the stands helping out.
Players were ordered off the field. After play resumed, late goals from Ansu Fati and Dembele closed things off to give Barca another 4-goal win. Barca top the La Liga table with their marquee signing Lewandowski now having scored 6 goals in his first five league games for the Catalan giants. A flying start unmatched in recent times at Camp Nou.
