Barcelona clung on with 10 men to beat Valencia 1-0 and move 10 points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga on Sunday, thanks to Raphinha\u2019s early header.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian winger nodded the Catalans in front in the 16th minute. But after Ferran Torres missed a penalty and Ronald Araujo was sent off, the hosts were left fighting tooth and nail for the three points.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe important thing is we keep adding points and we have three more,\u201d Raphinha told Movistar.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to play with one less man, we did what we needed to, moved deeper and we pulled out the win.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Barca retreated in the final half hour following Araujo\u2019s 59th minute red card but survived to beat Ruben Baraja\u2019s Valencia, who are 19th and two points from safety.<\/span><\/p>\n Barcelona\u2019s 1-0 Copa del Rey semi-final first-leg triumph over Real Madrid on Thursday followed two consecutive defeats, and this narrow victory felt like a significant step towards a first league title since 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n Madrid can cut the gap back to seven points later on at Real Betis, but were hoping a depleted Barcelona would stumble at Camp Nou.<\/span><\/p>\n Without top scorer Robert Lewandowski, midfield maestros Pedri and Gavi and winger Ousmane Dembele, the Catalans were unable to play their best football, but did just enough to win.<\/span><\/p>\n Along with Barcelona\u2019s playing absentees, coach Xavi Hernandez was suspended too, watching from a box, with his brother and assistant Oscar in the dugout.<\/span><\/p>\n Valencia resisted early Barcelona pressure but came undone when Sergio Busquets lofted a pass into the area for Raphinha to meet with a cunning run and a header over Giorgi Mamardashvili.<\/span><\/p>\n It was Raphinha\u2019s fifth league goal of the season and similar to his header against Osasuna which snatched Barcelona a vital win before the World Cup break.<\/span><\/p>\n Although the forward has not consistently shone since his move from Leeds United last summer, his goals in recent weeks have helped Barca cope with Dembele\u2019s absence.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barcelona clung on with 10 men to beat Valencia 1-0 and move 10 points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga on Sunday, thanks to Raphinha\u2019s early header.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[715,586,6566,5119],"class_list":["post-12467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-barca","tag-la-liga","tag-raphinha","tag-valencia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12469,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12467\/revisions\/12469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}