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Full-time: Barcelona 5-2 Valencia
It is all over (it has been for quite a while).
Goal! Barcelona 5-2 Valencia (Gomez, 90+2)
A consolation. How cute.
89 mins: Great commitment from Jordi Alba to get out and block Lee’s shot from the edge of the box. His side are 5-1 but he throws himself in the line of fire, somewhere in the home counties John Terry shows his appreciation.
87 mins: Vidal tries to get in on the act as he ghosts into the box down the left channel. Paulista does well to cut out the cross and Cillessen gathers.
85 mins: This was a contest at half-time but since Pique’s goal Valencia have hardly carried any threat. The defence has not let Gameiro run in behind them this half and ultimately the quality of Barça in attack has overwhelmed the visitors.
Goal! Barcelona 5-1 Valencia (Suarez, 83)
He sneaks it in again! Barcelona could have scored three times in the build-up to that goal but eventually it comes to Suarez who walks into the strike and sweeps it past Cillessen at the keeper’s near post. That was very clever finish.
78 mins: Gomez goes into the book for a late lunge. Lenglet is still down.
74 mins: That’s not far away from Busquets. I have hardly seen him all game but he has probably just been ticking away in midfield, doing that metronome thing. Suddenly he is curling a shot from 30 yards just wide of Cillessen’s left-hand post.
72 mins: More changes, Rodrigo heads off and Gomez is on for Valencia. Valverde swaps Arthur with Arturo Vidal for Barça.
68 mins: Perez should be booked for a hack on Rodrigo but gets away with it. De Jong goes off for Rakitic in the aftermath.
67 mins: Couple of Valencia changes, Guedes and Torres off, Cheryshev and Kang-in Lee on. Lee almost immediately booked.
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63 mins: Cillessen was at fault for the third but he has saved a fifth there. Perez drives at the Valencia defence, creating panic, when the ball is only half cleared it falls back to the forward who drives low and forces Cillessen into an acrobatic save with his feet, Griezmann’s second effort from further out is then gathered well.
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Goal! Barcelona 4-1 Valencia (Luis Suarez, 61)
Who needs fun when you can precision accuracy? On for more than a minute and Suarez has ended this as contest. A dummy on the edge of the box sells his defender then the Uruguayan takes a second swing, curling his shot off the base of the inside of the left post.
60 mins: Ernest Valverde clearly does not like fun. Luis Suarez is on and Ansu Fati, the game’s outstanding player, is off.
58 mins: More probing from Barcelona which only seems to come to life when Ansu Fati gets on the ball. There is a dummy, a feint and the noise rises at Camp Nou. Nothing comes of it but the game is more fun when the kid is on the ball.
55 mins: Semedo cuts into the area from the right and pulls the trigger only to see his effort rebound back off the post. That as such soft defending from Valencia, the full-back was just allowed to wander into the box under non-existent pressure.
53 mins: Alba is cautioned for a shirt pull.
Goal! Barcelona 3-1 Valencia (Pique, 51)
What is he doing there? Griezmann’s low strike is fumbled by Cillessen and Gerard Pique is there to poe past the hapless keeper from the rebound. The centre half had must have stayed forward from the corner just beforehand.
50 mins: Fati tries a cross from the right but Ezequiel Garay is composed at the back post and chests the ball back to Cillessen.
47 mins: Great start from the visitors. They immediately romp up the right-hand side, an initial cross gets a suspicious looking block from Pique at the front post. The second comes to Gameiro but his effort is high and wide. Shades of handball as Pique cut out the first ball in.
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Peeeep!
46 mins: Valencia get us back underway.
Half-time: Barcelona 2-1 Valencia
Ansu Fati the star of the show at the break. He has scored one, created the other for De Jong and generally carried the Barça threat. If not for the pesky Gameiro, Valencia would be buried. As it is, the visitors have been able to count on Gameiro and the Frenchman certainly has the hosts’ back line running scared.
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44 mins: Griezmann, overshadowed so far, tries to make his mark on the game with an ambitious effort from distance which is a little too ambitious and sails harmlessly over.
39 mins: Ansu Fati should have had a penalty! A delightful piece of skill from the youngster sees him flick a ball over a defender’s head to spin away and create a chance, the members loved that. A couple of phases later he is brought down in the box as he skipped past a challenge. It looked soft initially but from the replay there was enough contact for a foul, he is after all little more than a child.
37 mins: Barça nearly gift Gameiro another allowing a hamrless counter attack to turn into a couple of genuine chances. Firstly Ter Stegen has to be smart to rush out and prevent the striker rounding him, then the keeper comes up big when the ball is recycled into the box and Gameiro attempts a bicycle kick. The Frenchman’s pace looks capable of creating something when he’s running at the Barcelona back line.
33 mins: Ansu Fati is again in the thick of it, firing at goal from distance. This one is a bit more wayward than his previous efforts but the 16-year-old is finding acres of space on the left hand side. Just before Camp Nou was screaming for a couple of penalties, neither should have been given.
30 mins: First card of the game goes to Rodrigo after he clips De Jong, harsh for a yellow that.
Goal! Barcelona 2-1 Valencia (Gameiro, 27)
Gameiro thinks he has scored! He’s through on goal and fires past Ter Stegen but it is ruled out... wait we are going to VAR for an offside check. It looks good and after an inexplicably long wait it is given, game on!
23 mins: Perhaps Barça just need to keep scoring. They look most secure when popping it around the Valencia box, probing from side to side in search of an opening. It is slow but alluring, more like watching golf than football. A pretty passage ends with Arthur trying to dink a pretty pass into Griezmann but probably wanted a sand wedge rather than a nine iron.
19 mins: Here is the weakness of this Barça team. Valencia apply a modicum of pressure and suddenly it looks as if the house might collapse. Gameiro twice bursts away from the Barcelona defence, the first time he is forced to check back, resulting in a messy scramble to clear, then he gets in behind but cannot find the target with a left-footed shot.
16 mins: Ansu Fati is inches away from getting his second! The kid cuts from the right and flashes a curling shot between two defenders that leaves Cillessen standing and drifts just past the far post.
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12 mins: How do Valencia come back from this? Albert Celades finds his side 2-0 down inside ten minutes in his first game in charge. They look shellshocked but perhaps some hope exists on the counter. Even in an opening salvo where Barça have ruled the roost there have been odd flickers on the break. Currently is it all backs to the wall for the visitors though, but they have gone six minutes without conceding so that is a bonus.
Goal! Barcelona 2-0 Valencia (De Jong, 7)
It is two! Valencia are a steaming hot mess and Ansu Fati is running the show here. This time he plays creator for Frenkie de Jong’s first Barcelona goal, getting to the byline on the left and finding the Dutchman arriving in the six-yard box to plant past Jasper Cillessen from close rage. I can barely catch a breath.
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Goal! Barcelona 1-0 Valencia (Ansu Fati, 2)
Well, well, well, could he have asked for a better start? Thrust into the starting line-up and Ansu Fati has scored with virtually his first touch! The 16-year-old sweeps home from a sweeping Barcelona attack as the ball is cut back to the penalty spot.
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Peeeeep! We're underway at Camp Nou
Griezzman kicks us off.
The teams are out on the pitch and after a brief presentation we’re set to get underway.
Charles Antaki writes in: ‘Ansu Fati in the starting XI? Amazing - he looks about 12 years old (actually 16 I think) and had one decent spell of 20 minutes the other day. Good luck to him of course, and what a terrific achievement; but it shows something is amiss in Barça when Messi and Suárez can’t play.’
You have a point Charles, it is a touch of Theo Walcott going to the 2006 World Cup.
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Team news
Barcelona: Ter Stegen, Nélson Semedo, Gerard Piqué, Clément Lenglet, Jordi Alba, Frenkie De Jong, Sergio Busquets, Ansu Fati, Arthur, Carles Pérez, Antoine Griezmann.
Subs: Iñaki Peña, Junior Firpo, Todibo, Sergi Roberto, Rakitic, Arturo Vidal, Luis Suárez.
Valencia: Jasper Cillessen, Ezequiel Garay, Gabriel Paulista, José Gaya, Daniel Wass, Dani Parejo, Francis Coquelin, Ferran Torres, Gonçalo Guedes, Kevin Gameiro, Rodrigo Moreno.
Subs: Jaume Doménech, Jaume Costa, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Denis Cheryshev, Mouctar Diakhaby, Lee Kang-in, Maximiliano Gómez
Preamble
Valencia arrive at the Camp Nou in a state of turmoil after their owner, Peter Lim, decided to axe head coach Marcelino García Toral just days before their visit to Barcelona. Marcelino has been replaced by the former Spain Under-21s manager Albert Celades, but even against a Barcelona side on the same number of points after an equally slow start to the season, a win for Los Ches under these circumstances would appear unlikely.
Marcelino’s exit ends an ugly power struggle with Lim, but given the veteran coach had returned a level of stability to the club the fans will probably wish there had been a different victor.
Valencia’s issues heading into the match are threatening to mask Barcelona’s own consistency issues. Only one win in their first three games means Barça are already four points behind leaders Atlético Madrid and the reigning champions will once again be without talisman Lionel Messi having also failing to secure the return of Neymar at the end of the European window.
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