Barcelona

Barcelona's teenage sensation Pedri scored a magnificent goal in the second half to secure a 1-0 win over fading Sevilla on Sunday as they climbed above ...

First 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 ...

This was his eighth Barcelona goal: he is no goalscorer but he has got there 68 games faster than Iniesta. “He controls space and time,” Xavi said. The control and clarity, the understanding, the management of the match and its moments. In terms of talent, I haven’t seen a player in the world like him,” Xavi said a month or so ago. The quality of the touch and the timing. “The leader of the opposition,” AS called him, and it was nice to know there is one. He reminds me of Iniesta. If we’re talking pure talent, he’s the best in the world.” On Cadena Ser radio, commentator Lluis Flaquer has long referred to him as Pedri Potter. Golden Boy winner, the Euros announced him to the world and so did his coach, another more pertinent parallel drawn than the one likening him to Messi. “Anyone who knows anything about football knows that no one has ever seen that from anybody at 18, not even Sir Andrés Iniesta,” Luis Enrique insisted in the summer. The sense of control and calm goes beyond the moment itself to a player quietly taking responsibility for a team emerging as challengers again. Rakitic flew at him so he applied the brakes, a moment’s still as the game whizzed by, not so much going past his opponent as inviting his opponent to go past him. There was a little over quarter of an hour left and it was 0-0 between Barcelona and Sevilla, second place at stake, when Pedri got the ball and pressed pause. He began not so much punching the air as trying to knock it out. 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.

Calls for a Ballon d'Or in Pedri's future are not new, but they received renewed energy after the Spanish youngster scored a stunning solo goal for ...

Eventually, he fired low past Yassine Bounou to give Barcelona a late lead in the 72nd minute. Against Sevilla, Pedri's contributions were numerous, losing possession just 13 times among 79 touches and completing 85 per cent of his passes, including five of six successful long balls. Calls for a Ballon d'Or in Pedri's future are not new, but they received renewed energy after the Spanish youngster scored a stunning solo goal for Barcelona against Sevilla on Sunday.

They're 12 points behind league leaders Real Madrid with a game in hand. Barcelona have nine games left to play while Madrid have eight and the former look more ...

We’re going to try to win all the games. I like to win and I believe that the team deserved it. I had the feeling that it was going to come.

The Croatian rejoined Sevilla from La Blaugrana that summer six years after leaving the Andalusian outfit for Barcelona. He won everything at Camp Nou; four La ...

Even strips off to show his gratitude. And he made sure to thank the Barcelona fans present at Camp Nou after the game, coming back out after the final whistle before gifting his shirt and his shorts to fans in the crowd. Pedri’s golazo in the 72nd minute decided the game and saw Barcelona climb above Sevilla in La Liga to second place.

It's Monday, and Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of football. Jump to: Juve-Inter fallout | Rangnick under pressure? | Magical Pedri | ...

And this wasn't as some kind of false nine -- Kane remains a regular presence in the box with his well-timed runs -- but as a genuine, all-around centre-forward capable of putting his skill set at the service of the side. Diego Simeone's substitutions (especially Matheus Cunha and Luis Suarez, who grabbed two goals) helped turn the game and, at the risk of stating the obvious, having plenty of options on the bench is a real boon. Traveling away to Atalanta isn't fun at the best of times, but it becomes downright unpleasant when you're missing your star striker (Victor Osimhen) and half of your starting back four (Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Amir Rrahmani). So Napoli adapted. The Portuguese starlet may never live up to his enormous transfer fee, but, still just 22, he's offering quality and consistency of a sort that we haven't often seen during his time at the club. But it's three big points in the bag that keep them on track ahead of their mega-clash with Manchester City on April 10. He didn't find the net, but he was pivotal in linking play and setting up teammates with his movement. But it didn't influence the game, and frankly, it should go down as nothing more than a piece of football trivia. It took Bayern Munich a while to get going away to Freiburg -- it was tied 1-1 with 20 minutes left -- but don't let the goal sequence fool you. With Karim Benzema and Ferland Mendy returning to the XI, Real were at full strength -- minus Carlo Ancelotti, absent following a positive COVID-19 test -- and still struggled against the usual brave, high-energy game preached by Eduardo "El Chacho" Coudet. There's no argument on Madrid's first penalty, but the second (Jeison Murillo on Rodrygo) looked generous and the third (Kevin Vazquez on Ferland Mendy) even more so. It was the sort of individual game-turning brilliance to which the Camp Nou had become accustomed over the past 15 years, coinciding with the reign of one Lionel Messi. It was not something you see often, either, much less from a kid of Pedri's age. (Yes, there are some fools who think the result is all that matters.) Very few successful teams play reactive football of the sort Allegri served up much of this season, and Sunday night showed Juve can play a different way. The other was Lautaro Martinez, who had already been booked, not getting a second yellow card for his foul on Giorgio Chiellini. Here, I think the referee got it wrong and that he was maybe influenced by not wanting to send somebody off after 23 minutes.