Ronaldo's club embarrass disinterested Barcelona

Ronaldo's club embarrass disinterested Barcelona

Faruq Ibrahim 23:25 - 23.05.2023

Xavi Hernandez's Barcelona suffered a defeat in consecutive games after an abysmal performance.

Barcelona were lacklustre, and seemed disinterested as they had been crowned LaLiga champions. Their complacency was duly exploited, as Real Valladolid beat them 3-0.

var widgetLoaderConfig = widgetLoaderConfig || { CDN_URL: 'https://widgets.sportal365.com', APP_LINK: 'desktop', API_URL: 'https://africa.football.api.sportal365.com/', API_KEY: '2f852b4de2f3a5cf3188e74b33087bb4:2c18422f8e826a7d11aeed52edb2449e', LANG: 'en', REQUEST_INTERVAL: 30, ENABLE_BET_SLIP: false, AUTHOR: false, THEME: "light", TOURNAMENT_ORDER: "pulse_nigeria", LINK_OPTIONS_V2: { 'player' : { 'url': '/football/player/{playerId}' }, 'team' : { 'url': '/football/{teamId}' }, 'tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}' }, 'match': { 'url' : '/football/match/{matchId}', 'sort': { 'criteria': 'alphabetically', 'direction': 'asc' } }, 'configuration': { 'newWindow': false }, 'standings_tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}/standings' } } }; if (!document.querySelector('script[src="https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js"]')) { window.setTimeout(function () { let scriptCss = document.createElement('link'); scriptCss.href = 'https://www.pulsesports.ug/css/sport-widgets.css?v=1668785443'; scriptCss.rel = 'stylesheet'; scriptCss.type = 'text/css'; document.body.appendChild(scriptCss); let scriptTag = document.createElement('script'); scriptTag.src = 'https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js'; scriptTag.defer = true; scriptTag.onload = function () { window.setTimeout(function () { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }, 200); }; document.head.appendChild(scriptTag); }, 0); } else { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }

Delima Ronaldo's club hosted the champions at the Jose Zorilla as they continued their fight against relegation. Their hunger bore fruit, and they devoured Xavi's men, who are still hungover from being LaLiga winners.

How it happened 

The visitors started poorly and were punished with a goal as early as the second minute of the game when Andreas Christensen headed an attempted clearance into his own goal. 

Xavi's men struggled to string together anything coherent and looked disinterested as their pressing and determination in duels that saw them crowned champions were lacking. 

They were exposed by another Valladolid transition, and in an attempt at a tackle, Eric Garcia tripped the opposing attacker in the penalty box. The resulting penalty was coolly dispatched by Cyle Larin. 

The second goal seemed to motivate the visitors to improve their performance, and they added intensity to their play but could not manage to pull one back, no thanks to their former player Jordi Masip in goal for Paulo Pezzolano's side. 

The Blaugrana were exposed in another transition deep into the second-half, which left them empty at the back and allowed Gonzalo Plata a simple finish after being squared by Larin. 

Robert Lewandowski pulled one back in the 84th minute, but it was a little too late to stage any sort of comeback. 

The win was crucial to the hosts' survival ambitions as they climb away from the relegation places, while Barcelona failed to set a clean sheet record.  

Related content