His winner against Sevilla led to more Messi comparisons, but it is another Barça idol that the teenager more closely resemblesFirst Pedri González put Ivan Rakitic on the floor, next he put Diego Carlos on the floor and then, allowing time to speed up again, he put Yassine Bono on the floor and 76,112 people on their feet. And that’s just those who were in the ground chanting his name, bowing before him. Because if Sevilla fell for the quiet lad who comes to the Camp Nou with his kit in a carrier bag on Sunday night, so did everyone else. “Pedri, Pedri, Pedri,” went the cover of Sport, like a kid calling on the Candyman and soon there he...
A 4-0 thrashing of Real Madrid still leaves Barcelona 12 points adrift in La Liga but offers plenty of memories to savourThe nets where Barcelona had scored four times, twice at the north end, twice at the south, had been unhooked and hung flat. The benches had been vacated, bottles and bits of tape lying everywhere. Around the pitch, circled by those plastic chairs, people packed away another clásico. The Santiago Bernabéu was quiet except for the lawnmower crossing the grass until it was broken by a cheer, the sound of embraces. The players were on the bus but Joan Laporta, Jordi Cruyff and Mateu Alemany were by the tunnel taking it all in when Xavi Hernández appeared.An hour after...
The forward has been in inspired form since returning to action at the club who tried their very best to get rid of himDown on the bench, Jordi Alba leaned towards to Ronald Araújo, said something cheeky and grinned. At which point, the Uruguayan, a little slow to click at first, went from huh?! to a line of his own and both of them started laughing. They covered their mouths so you couldn’t work out what it actually was but it was more fun to guess anyway, a kind of Camp Nou caption competition. Something like: “And then he only goes and says: ‘surely love is a kind of blackmail,’” perhaps. Or: “Should have gone to Spurs.”They had just gone...
Munir El Haddadi came off the bench early to send the crowd at the Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium into a frenzy with a vital goal“I was sitting on the bench thinking: ‘Bloody hell, I’m enjoying this,’” Munir El Haddadi said, and it would only get better. He had been inside the bus as it moved slowly through the smoke on the short trip to the Sánchez Pizjuán stadium; now he was alongside the pitch, unable to sit still as his Sevilla teammates made their way through Real Betis quite a lot quicker. With the noise rising round them this was a moment to be part of and, sooner than expected, he was sprinting off in the sunshine, laughing as the substitutes...
Having lost a club legend in ‘Mauri’ two days previous, Athletic’s 4-0 demolition of Real Sociedad felt like a fitting tributeEleven villagers were enough to bring down a giant, so it goes. On the day the 1958 World Cup final was played in Solna, another game took place 2,200 miles south, which wasn’t where they wanted it but that made it better in the end.Athletic Club de Bilbao – Atlético then, by dictatorial decree – had requested the final of the Copa del Generalísimo be held in a neutral city, but the Generalísimo wasn’t going anywhere which meant that nor were they. At best, they were told, Spain’s showpiece game could be moved to the Metropolitano so they said let’s...