Barça broke the tragedy around team doctor Carles Miñarro García in terms of sport and moved into the quarter -finals of the Champions League. In the victory against Benfica, the players kept pointing to heaven.
Alexander Kohne reports from Barcelona
The goals for the hosts scored Raphinha (11th/42nd minute) and Lamine Yamal (27th). Benficas Nicolás Otamendi achieved the interim compensation for the overall chanceless Lisbon (13th).
The entire game was under the impression of the death of Barça’s long -time Carles Miñarro García, who surprisingly died on Saturday before the planned game against Ca Osasuna in the hotel. The game of the Spanish La Liga was then laid.
Before the kick -off against Benfica, a minute of commemoration for Miñarro was held in the Olympic Stadium on the Montjuïc Stadtberg, while the Barça’s player appeared visibly touched. After that, the “Blaugrana” Benfica, which played with black mourning flora, literally overran.
After Raphinha (3rd) and Lamine Yamal (6th) did not consistently play dangerous situations, Baldé came to the first major chance of the game in the ninth minute-but Benfica keeper Anatoliy Trubin tore up his hands in time and parried a seven-meter shot in the last second.
After the high -standing catalans failed a minute later in the form of Robert Lewandowski on the strongly laid -back goalkeeper of the Portuguese, Raphinha again used a wonderful preparatory work from Yamal to 1-0 for the hosts one minute (11th).
Then Barça’s vertebrae was suddenly stopped, because the Portuguese, which had been unexpectedly up to date, struck back unexpectedly two minutes later after a corner. The 37-year-old defense hauden Otamendi skipped the entire Barca defense and, after involuntary extension of Lewandowski, easily headed to compensate (13th). Only 120 seconds after Barça’s lead.
Ex-national coach Flick became visibly dissatisfied on the side line, but his team did not leave him in this state of mind for long: After the former Leipziger Dani Olmo just missed the goal from nine meters, Youngster Yamal got the new Barça leadership in the 27th minute-with a dream goal: First the 17-year-old circulated an appeal like a slalom rod The ball from the penalty area boundary with a lot of feeling in the top left goal angle. So very few players in Europe can do that.
But as before, Barça repeatedly showed uncertainties in the defense. Shortly before the half -time break, Vangelis Pavlidis almost took advantage of it, but Benfica’s Greek failed from about eleven meters on the latte (39).
It was a wake -up call for Barça. Only Lewandowski failed from a short distance to Trubin (41.), then Raphinha made it better after a precise pass from Alejandro Balde and safely closed to 3-1 (42.). After a suspected offside position, the goal was on checking the video referee.
In the second half, the game clearly calmed down. Only Ronald Araújo caused excitement in front of the goal, but Barça’s defense chief only hit the outside network after a free kick from a short distance.
Otherwise, the second half was largely unspectacular. Only Frenkie de Jong for Barça (65th) and Benficas Samuel Dahl (77th) came to significant opportunities.