The leader FC Barcelona was not surprised on his visit to bottom club Elche, whom he beat 4-0 with a brace from Robert Lewandowski, this Saturday in matchday 27 of the Spanish League, taking another step towards the title.
With 71 points, Barça is provisionally placed with 15 more than the second, Real Madridwhich receives Valladolid (15th) on Sunday at the Santiago Bernabéu.
Lewandowski paved the way for Barca to win with a shot in the area in minute 20 after receiving a ball from Uruguayan Ronald Araújo.
Lewandowski himself (42) and the Frenchman Jules Koundé (44) They had very clear chances to extend the score just before the break, but the verdict came in the second half, when Ansu Fati (56) finished off a counterattack with a cross shot from outside the area with which he beat Edgar Badía.
The ’10’ of Barça claimed this way, in a week in which statements by his father in which he complained about his son’s lack of minutes, who this time started at the Martínez Valero stadium, caused a stir.
In minute 66, Gavi stole a ball after an error by the locals and gave it to Lewandowski, who sealed his double inside the area of the night. With everything decided, Ferran Torres, from the front of the area, put the fourth at 70.
“It was a round night, we played a very good game, from start to finish”, celebrated the coach of the Catalans, Xavi Hernández.
“We have taken one more step, now we are closer. We slept at fifteen points and I’m happy because we show that we are a block”, he pointed out.
It is Barcelona’s fourth straight win in the League. The previous one had been against Real Madrid in a ‘Clásico’ at the Camp Nou, where they will receive the white team again on Wednesday, this time in the Copa del Rey semifinal second leg (Barça’s 1-0 victory in the one way in Madrid).
Lewandowski, now with 17 goals, also extends his advantage in front of the championship scorers table. He now has a four lead over the second, the Turkish Enes Ünal (Getafe).
Elche, on the other hand, continues to sink towards the second division. With just 13 points, they are fourteen from the safety zone and avoiding relegation seems increasingly impossible.
– Mendilibar gets off to a good start –
In the rest of the games of the day, the victory of Sevilla stood out, in his first game since the dismissal of Argentine Jorge Sampaoli and his replacement by José Luis Mendilibar, 2-0 in an Andalusian derby in Cádiz.
With 31 points, Sevilla takes oxygen and climbed to thirteenth place, provisionally placing five units above the relegation zone, which marks Valencia (18th). It also beats a direct rival for permanence such as Cádiz (16th), which it now leads in the table by three points.
The Argentine Lucas Ocampos (minute 50) opened the way for Sevilla, taking advantage of a clearance from goalkeeper David Gil in a corner kick, and the sentence was signed by the Moroccan Youssef En Nesyri, with a cross shot after receiving from Bryan Gil.
Five and a half months had the Seville without winning outside their stadium and he achieved it right at the premiere of the ‘Mendilibar era’.
The Basque coach was appointed as the team’s new coach on March 21, the day on which the departure of Jorge Sampaoli was also announced. Two days earlier, Sevilla had suffered a worrying 2-0 league defeat at Getafe.
Sevilla now leads Getafe (14th) in the table again, who he surpasses by one point after the Madrid team drew 0-0 this Saturday in Bilbao against Athletic (7th).
In a worse situation is Espanyol (17th), only one point above the red zone and that they lost 2-1 in the first game of the day, in a derby in Girona (10th).
The goal of Girona’s victory was achieved, in the 88th penalty, by the Uruguayan Cristhian Stuani.
