Well, if the entire of Europe is writing you off, your two main rivals are snapping at your heels like sharks and you’re facing a total collapse in the league, you may as well go out and beat Deportivo 8-0 to let everyone know quite how wrong they are. Suarez was sensational - three assists and a hat-trick. Wow.
Thanks for reading, do go and join Barry Glendenning who is following Liverpool v Everton here, while Tim Hill is on Manchester United v Crystal Palace duty here.
For the rest of the La Liga goals and results, look no further than here. Bye!
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Peep, peep!
There’s just time for Suarez to whistle a shot over the bar, before the referee blows the final whistle on the dot of 90 minutes, putting the home side out of their misery without a second of injury time.
89 min: Neymar attempts to lift the ball over the Deportivo defence and Sidnei, for about the first time in the match, decides to track the runner - Messi, in this case - and shepherds him out of play. Deportivo have been awful in the second half but could have had goals in the first.
87 min: Is there time for another goal? What’s the betting Suarez would be involved if there was:
Luis Suárez has made La Liga history today: 4 goals and an assists hat-trick 😱
— MisterChip (English) (@MisterChiping) April 20, 2016
86 min: On the bench, Barcelona’s substitutes are asking what the score is in Bilbao. 1-0, they’re told, to Atlético. And despite the fact their side are 8-0 up and having a ball, Barcelona’s subs look tense and taut on the bench, frustrated that they’ve let themselves get in this position.
85 min: There hasn’t been a goal in the last few minutes. People want their money back. Fede attempts one, striking from 30 yards, but Bravo catches the ball dismissively.
82 min: Lucas rifles in a shot at the other end, perhaps just to show he’s not down and out yet. His team are, however. What a silly game of football.
GOAL! Deportivo 0-8 Barcelona (Neymar, 80 min)
Messi to Saurez, Suarez across the box to Neymar and, cantering across the area, the Brazilian smashes the ball home. Imagine being Real Madrid in the changing room now thinking they’ve got to match it.
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GOAL! Deportivo 0-7 Barcelona (Bartra, 78 min)
This is getting silly, Bartra, the central defender, simply runs the ball from the centre circle right through the middle of the Deportivo defence and slides the ball home from 15 yards. Ridiculously good goal, ridiculously poor defending.
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76 min: The goals might come at the other end, that said. Laure is again free up the right and again crosses well. This time he finds Gutierrez, who heads over from not very far out at all. Depotivo could very easily have four, if not five goals. Barcelona’s front three (well, maybe not Neymar) might be back on track, but their defence isn’t.
74 min: This isn’t over yet by a long chalk, and it’s telling that Luis Enrique has used all his substitutions (having used none against Valencia) but left his three frontmen on. He’s keen to make a statement here.
GOAL! Deportivo 0-6 Barcelona (Messi, 71)
So simple. Suarez checks inside and darts into the box, crosses to Messi (who had lost Sidnei) with ease and he passes the ball into the next from 10 yards.
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71 min: More substitutions: Adriano replaces Jordi Alba at left back and Rafinha comes on for Sergio for Barcelona. For Depor, the former Newcastle man Jonas Gutierrez replaces Celso Borges and that’s three substitutions each.
69 min: Lucas misses a sitter. Laure, unmarked on the right wing, pings in a great cross to the middle and finds the striker alone in the middle. From five yards, he manages to knock the ball high over the bar. Probably wouldn’t have changed the way the game is going but still.
67 min: Atlético aren’t taking the title race lying down either, they’ve just scored through Torres and lead Athletic 1-0.
66 min: Deportivo aren’t entirely lying down and taking this, and trot up the other end following the fifth Barcelona goal. Oriel Riera has a decent chance but complains (with some justification) that he was pulled over. He wins a corner but little comes of it from the home side’s point of view.
64 min: Neymar could certainly have scored there - are Barcelona now simply teeing Suarez up so that he wins the Pichichi? Stranger things have happened.
GOAL! Deportivo 0-5 Barcelona (Suarez, 63)
A long ball is launched into the Depor box and Neymar is on the end of it. He runs rapidly into the box and with the goal at his mercy … passes to Suarez when he could have scored himself. Suarez has one shot, which Laure blocks, then another which goes into the back of the net.
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62 min: The Depor defence stands off Rakitic, inviting him to shoot so he does - high and wide. A minute later …
61 min: Deportivo have changed tack, the plan now appears to be to get the ball wide then cross. It’s made them look a touch more threatening in the last few minutes with Laure clumping a decent ball over from the right.
59 min: Lucas, by far Deportivo’s most threatening player, thwacks a fierce shot at the Barcelona goal from 12 yards or so. Bravo makes another good stop, his palms stinging as though they’ve been flayed and dipped in Deep Heat no doubt.
“I’ve come to this late, but from what I can see Depor seem to be taking their duties as hosts exceptionally seriously,” writes Charles Antaki. “I don’t think I’ve seen more generosity on a football pitch all season. Are they resting for some other event coming up?
58 min: Substitution o’clock. The central defender Navarro is hoiked by Deportivo and is replaced by Fayçal Fajr, an attacking, creative midfielder. Yet to see how they’re going to reshuffle that. Next, Cani jogs off for Fede Cartabia. For Barcelona, Iniesta trots off and is replaced by Sergi Roberto.
56 min: A quick corner from Deportivo catches the referee off guard but not Barcelona. They whizz the ball around the edge of the Barcelona box, before attempting to play a Messi-esque ball into Lucas (on a Suarez-esque run). They don’t get the same result, though do get a corner.
54 min: That was like something from the training ground, with Deportivo’s defence playing a wonderful supporting role as a bunch of cones. Suarez gave and went, via Messi, and not a single Deportivo defender bothered to track him into the box. Incredible, really. Barcelona are coasting now (cue five goals from Deportivo).
GOAL! Deportivo 0-4 Barcelona (Suarez, 52 min, hat-trick)
Suarez to Messi, Messi to Saurez with the Uruguayan free and clear of the Deportivo defence with not a single one of them picking him up, and he slots it home from the penalty spot. Shocking defending from Deportivo.
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51 min: Alves rakes a long ball into the box, which is instantly controlled by Suarez. Again he cuts back to Messi but he can’t get a shot away. There’s some dillying and dallying frmo Barcelona, and eventually Deportivo force them back out and up the pitch. Oddly flat at the Riazor, noise-wise. Well, perhaps not that oddly, given their side are 0-3 down.
49 min: Dani Alves heaves a cross into the box, which is nodded back out by Mosquera but only to Rakitic. His shot this time is not remarkably efficient, it is in fact a blooter that goes well wide of Manu’s left hand post.
48 min: An exquisite goal, really. So fast, so simple and so deadly with Suarez’s cross over the top of the Deportivo defence a sign of such awareness and Rakitic’s finish remarkably efficient. A moment later, they nearly do it again with Suarez cutting the ball back to Messi, who strikes wide (Suarez was offside too).
GOAL! Deportivo 0-3 Barcelona (Rakitic, 45 min)
Neymar whizzes into the box, offloads to Suarez on the left, who picks out Rakitic completely unmarked over the other side of the area and he knocks it home first time. Is that the end of Barça’s blip?
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46 min: Deportivo come out all guns blazing, shoving three up front. For a brief minute in the opening moments, it looks as if it might work but then …
Peep, Peep!
Barcelona get the second half started. Messi is fit enough after his little twist and shake at the end of the first half and trots out much as if nothing had happened.
The last time these sides met, in December, Deportivo came right back from 2-0 down and won it. Second half coming up shortly but, here’s some reading in the general area of comebacks:
Public service announcement: Barry Glendenning is sitting next to me, tapping away furiously in the buildup to the Merseyside derby: follow Liverpool v Everton with him here.
Peep, peep
That’s half-time here, with Barcelona reasonably comfortable, Saurez perhaps unlucky not to have a hat-trick and Deportivo unlucky not to have a goal themselves. Athletic Bilbao v Atlético Madrid is about to start - you can see goal updates from that in our match centre here.
43 min: Iniesta lofts lovely ball into the penalty spot and Messi goes up for, alongside Manu and Navarro. Manu gets to the ball first, clonking his own defender in the process who, in turn, clonks Messi. Both the outfield players go down clutching their heads and the referee gives Derpotivo a free kick for want of anything else to do.
40 min: Deportivo build up the right hand side - but not for very long, as Mascherano nicks the ball and sends it forwards. Barcelona work the ball across midfield for a while, happy to wait for an opening. Finally INiesta is bundled off the ball by Lucas, who has had just about enough of that sort of thing. From the free-kick, Barcelona continue to do exactly as they were doing with it before: passing it about a bit.
“Collywobbles be gone,” writes Justin Kavanagh of Barcelona. “You have to hand it to Suarez: he is the scrappers’ scrapper and the right man to bring to any dogfight.” For more reasons than one.
38 min: Messi is up and on his feet again but entirely happy. He’s happier than Neymar, though, who looks desperately out of touch. The Brazilian takes down a ball crossed in from the right and is immediately robbed of it inside the area. He looks rueful.
36 min: Messi wiggles himself into the box and fires a shot at goal, which is blocked well by Navarro and as he attempts to get the ball back, he twists and his knee appears to twist too. He goes down in pain and Barcelona immediately kick the ball out.
34 min :Suarez mickick inside the six yard box from an Alves cross, missing a gilt-edged chance for a hat-trick. He looks unhappy. A moment or two later, Dani Alves takes the heat off him - tripping over the ball on the touchline and heading into the advertising hoardings headfirst. He comes up smiling.
33 min: Deportivo lurk dangerously outside the Barcelona area, looking for an opening. They don’t get one so Lucas attempts to fox Bravo by trying to chip him from the edge of the box. He doesn’t get it quite right, and Bravo was on his line anyway, and ends up dinking the ball gently into the keeper’s arms.
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30 min: Neymar attempts to find Jordi Alba running up the left, but Cani decides he’s not having it, so clumps the Brazilian hard on the ankle and looks surprised that the referee waggles a yellow card at him for a blatant, lumbering and deliberate foul.
29 min: Cani lifts the ball into the box and, just as Riera shapes to bicycle kick it goalwards, Bartra gets his head bravely to the ball to nod it clear. Again, Deportivo are not unthreatening.
26 min: Messi’s first time ball to Saurez for that goal was sensational. Barcelona, in attack, are fiercely threatening - Messi, Iniesta and Suarez in particular - but it’s at the back they’re vulnerable. Deportivo could have had two tonight had luck been on their side and Lucas again goes close, rifling a shot over the bar from 10 yards without much in the way of anyone trying to tackle him.
DEP 0-2 FCB (24') - Luis Suárez equals the 47 goals scored by Ronaldo Nazario for Barcelona in 1996-97
— MisterChip (English) (@MisterChiping) April 20, 2016
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GOAL! Deportivo 0-2 Barcelona (Suarez, 23 min)
There’s the second. Iniesta finds Messi unmarked on the D, who plays a first time ball through the defence to Saurez who scores from more or less the penalty spot. Are Barcelona back?
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22 min: Iniesta flips a ball into the box from 30 yards, Suarez is just about onside and breaks free of the back four, before twisting around and attempting to bicycle kick the ball into the net. He misses, but it’s quite the effort.
19 min: How have Deportivo not scored there? The ball is rifled into the box and Borges takes three or four touches with the ball right in front of Bravo with the keeper scrambling around the floor but can’t get a shot away. It falls to Riera and he blasts over from six yards. Oh my.
17 min: Lucas plays a delicate ball right over the top of the Barcelona defence, and BOrges gets on the end of it. He can’t get enough of his toe onto it however, knocking the ball straight at Bravo in the Barça goal. Had he hit that anywhere else, Deportivo would have been level.
16 min: From a Deportivo corner, Barcelona break as Bartra heads clear. A rapid-fire counter results in Neymar, Suarez and Messi all breaking - which is enough to scare the pants off the Deportivo defence. But they get themselves in order, preventing Messi from getting a decent shot off when, in fact, he might have passed to Neymar.
15 min: Suarez, looking to get on the end of a cross from Laure, collapses in the box - collapses with feeling too. He probably knew the cross was going over his head, however, and invited the contact. The referee’s not having any of it.
12 min: If this pans out like it has done recently, we’ll get another Barcelona goal in reasonably short order, the side will relax a bit and then Depor will score three.
GOAL! Deportivo 0-1 Barcelona (Suarez, 10min)
Rakitic swings over a corner, Mascherano leaves it and Suarez from two yards out - entirely unmarked - stabs it past Manu with Sidnei complaining he had been pushed.
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10 min: Riera, the former Wigan man, tries his luck from 35 yards. The ball bounces, skedaddles and wheeches wide, wuth the best you can say about it that it was optimistic. Barcelona aren’t having that and race up the other end, with Messi stining Manu’s gloves.
9 min: Messi finds Neymar out wide on the left, he finds Iniesta, who swings the ball over to Dani Alves on the right wing. His cross goes over everybody and Iniesta starts to pull strings all over again. Deportivo are happy to let Barcelona have the ball and have nine men behind it, forcing Barça to take risks which come to naught.
7 min: And then, from nowhere, Barcelona pounce. Iniesta takes the ball eight yards or so outside the box, then whizzes through a lovely slide rule pass for Suarez to bend his run onto. The Uruguayan reaches the ball then fires a shot just wide of the to pof he left hand post.
6 min: Lucas, Deportivo’s danger man, goes on a run up the right wing but finds he doesn’t have anywhere to go once Jordi Alba makes his presence known once again.
5 min: Some brief niggle erupts, Rakitic attempting to find Suarez but Navarro gets some feist in the way of things. From the free-kick, Deportivo launch the ball long before Bergantinos takes on Jordi Alba and comes off second best.
3 min: Neymar wiggles his way inside from the left wing, but there’s nothing on so the ball heads back to Barcelona’s Pique-less back four (he’s suspended) and an attack is launched up the right through Messi. Nothing doing there either. Eventually, Neymar attempts to lift the ball over Deportivo’s back four but doesn’t get quite enough on it to reach Suarez and they start over again.
Peep, peep! We're off
Following a moment’s pause in honour of the priest of Deportivo, we’re off. Deportivo in blue and white vertical stripes, get us under way. Barcelona, in yellow and red tripes up their back, are beaten back with a wave of head tennis before the visitors concede a throw in on their left.
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It looks a bit like this in the Riazor at the moment:
The Barça players are warming up #FCBlive #DeporFCB https://t.co/nrJhQgRHWf
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) April 20, 2016
Perhaps a bit harsh to call Barcelona’s collapse a choke but, should you feel so inclined, here are some of the best:
Luis Enrique has been in feisty mood before the match, perhaps attempting to deflect attention from his side’s lack of victories by claiming that, hey, it’s good for the game. “If the teams with the best players always won, football would be boring,” he pointed out offering Real Madrid a decent excuse .
Asked if having a pop at a journalist was a bit below the belt, as he did following the Valencia defeat, the Barcelona manager, in effect, hoisted a middle finger at assorted hacks and urged them to do the twist. “Journalists have also shown me a lack of respect. This is my style, I don’t care if you don’t like it.”
He went on to say he was convinced Barcelona were going to win the league, this match, that maybe the side needed a shrink before pointing out that he quite likes adversity and that the side was going to put on a show tonight. So strap in.
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Teams
Deportivo
25. Manu Fernández; 11. Juanfran, 3. Navarro, 12. Sidnei, 15. Laure, 5. Mosquera, 22, Celso Borges, 4. Álex Bergantiños, 6. Cani, 7. Lucas, 9. Oriel Riera
Subs: 13. Pletikosa, 2. Manuel Pablo, 16. Luisinho, 17. Fede Cartabia, 19. Fayçal Fajr, 20. Jona, 24. Jonás
Barcelona
13. Bravo, 18. Jordi Alba, 14. Mascherano, 15. Bartra, 6. Dani Alves, 8. Iniesta, 5. Sergio, 4. Rakitic, 11. Neymar, 10. Messi, 9. Suárez
Subs: 1. Ter Stegen, 2. Douglas, 7. Arda, 12. Rafinha, 17. Munir, 20. Sergi Roberto, 21. Adriano
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Preamble
Eighteen days ago, there were 13 points in it and only one team was ever going to win La Liga. Barcelona were dominant and their unbeaten 39-game run - and you can read much more about that here - made that point with as blatantly and emphatically as anything unsubtle and emphatic you care to choose: an elephant, a drunk in a midnight choir, a disco ball. Even the result against Villarreal, the 39th in their unbeaten sequence, when they drew 2-2 despite having led 2-0 felt like a good result – Villarreal are no walkover – and still, it extended their lead at the top of the division, even if it was only by a point.
But then came an international break and Real Madrid, and then Real Sociedad, before Atlético in the Champions League and Valencia and the defeats kept on coming, three of them in the league and one big one in Europe. And now the wheels have come off faster than the ones on Billy Smart’s clown car. Against Valencia there was a glimpse of a revival, an intent and attacking spirit in how they played – but still they lost 2-1, though as many pointed out, they might have won 4-3 as well. “I would almost rather lose playing like that than win playing the way we have recently,” reckoned Gerard Piqué.
And now, going into this match, all that separates the top three in Spain is a point. Barcelona have 76 of them, so do Atlético, while Real Madrid have 75 and tonight is a crunch evening in Spain. Barcelona play this one away at Deportivo, with Atlético kicking off at Athletic Bilbao 45 minutes later. Real Madrid kick-off at home against Villarreal at 10pm, and will know the result of both of their rivals’ fixtures when they do so.
From done and dusted and in Barcelona’s hands, the race for the Spanish title is back in action. As someone else around these parts is fond of saying: it is on.
Kick off: 7pm BST
For further reading, here’s Sid Lowe on the where it all went wrong for Barcelona:
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