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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport

Barcelona 4 Cultural Leonesa 1: Malcom on target as Blaugrana stroll into Copa del Rey fifth round

Barcelona brushed Cultural Leonesa aside at the Camp Nou to cruise into the fifth round of the Copa del Rey on Wednesday.

The Liga leaders rang the changes for the visit of the Segunda Division Group 1 side, as the likes of Alena, Malcom and Munir all came in as Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho were rested.

Leading 1-0 from the first leg, the hosts came close to conceding the opening goal when Adrian Mancebo's shot was saved by Jasper Cillessen.

Barcelona's first goal came in the 19th minute when Munir El Haddadi capitalised on a perfect pass from Ivan Rakitic to fire home past Jorge Palatsi.

(AP)

When Denis Suarez doubled the home side's advantage in the 26th minute with a stunning long range effort, it looked too much for the visitors to keep their hopes of progressing alive.

Malcom made it 3-0 on the night for Barcelona and 4-0 on aggregate just before half-time, showing no fear to power home a header from a Rakitic delivery.

With the tie all but won, Ernesto Valverde withdrew the influential Rakitic with the weekend derby with Espanyol in mind.

(Getty Images)

The visitors pulled a goal back in the 54th minute through Josep Sene but it turned out to be nothing more than a consolation.

Midway through the second half, Barcelona introduced youngster Riqui Puig from the bench for his debut and he showed his qualities by setting up Suarez for his second goal of the night to round off the scoring

Additional reporting by Press Association.

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