Barça takes another step towards the League on the night the Camp Nou freezes over

BarcelonaA little more than two weeks before the classic, Barça takes for granted that it will have to seal a league title that cannot escape it in any way without its great star. We will have to wait for the tests that Lamine Yamal will undergo this Thursday, but with barely a month left until the end of the competition and with a World Cup just around the corner, the feelings at the end of the match against Celta did not invite optimism. With a penalty goal, just before suffering an injury to his left leg and the stadium freezing over because a fan suffered cardiac arrest, the Rocafonda winger did what will probably be his last service of the season for Barça. The victory (1-0) against Celta dyes the League a little more blaugrana on a complicated night at Camp Nou.

Barça and the Galicians have in common a love for a football that loves the ball, far from defensive artifacts and schemes. Their proposal is attractive and, in just five minutes, there had already been two chances, one for Lamine and one for Durán. Claudio Giráldez's team wanted to fight, to play toe-to-toe with the blaugranas, and during the first half hour, it was the visitors who would get closest. Putting aside Lamine's initial action, Barça's clearest chance took a while to arrive. It would be after a good controlled turn by Ferran at the edge of the box. The Valencian leaves the ball to the number ten, but to his right foot, his less skillful one. Lamine, brilliant, adjusts it and tries a shot with the outside of his left foot that becomes dangerous. Great resource from the blaugrana star, who was Flick's most engaged player, in one of the few games in which Pedri allowed himself to be more down-to-earth.

Barça was sluggish. The Galicians were plugged in, but the Blaugranas knew that, sooner or later, their rival would run out of gas. Meanwhile, and against a team that under Giraóldez's baton dares to dispute the ball with Barça, an open scenario was drawn, in which the goal could fall anywhere. Until Lamine said enough. In every sense. Because he would score the first goal and because he would sound all the alarms, getting injured. Almost all the offensive production passed through his boots and a delicious combination with Olmo inside the area ended with the Rocafonda winger being run over by Yoel Lago. After Munuera Montero needed an eternity to whistle -and confirm- a clear penalty, Lamine himself would take care of shooting it.

A fan suffers a cardiac arrest

A well-placed shot, to Radu's left post, who guessed his intentions, but the number 10, full of conviction -aura, as they say nowadays - had placed the ball far from his reach. From here, the night took a turn, with silence taking over the stadium. Almost at the same time that Lamine fell to the ground, feeling a twinge in the back of his thigh that would force him to ask for a substitution and leave the pitch on his own foot after being attended to, a fan suffered a cardiac arrest that chilled the atmosphere.

After 20 minutes of suffering that felt very long, the match resumed, with the affected fan on his way to the hospital to recover. Roony Bardghji stepped onto the pitch in place of Lamine. A mixed bag for the Swede, who first attempted a pass with the outside of his foot that showed it's best to leave these flourishes for the star from Rocafonda and, shortly after, redeemed himself with a good strike from the edge of the box that Radu saved with a good hand.

A new, millimeter-precise offside denies a goal to Ferran

On the resumption, Flick would bring on a third new face. Balde, who had come on for the injured Cancelo in the 20th minute, and Roony, would be joined by Fermín. In this way, the experiment of Gavi as a false left winger, which had worked against Espanyol, but which did not perform against Celta, came to an end. Without Lamine's spark, the coach relied on Fermín's verticality and condemned Rashford to ostracism. The Blaugrana continued with their plan, ready to seal the match, with a very energetic Ferran as the striker.

A millimeter offside, as in the painful return leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, once again denied the Valencian a goal. The image that disallowed the goal is an insult to football. By the hair of a shrimp's mustache, a goal that had been beautiful stopped going up on the scoreboard. Technology erased from the scoreboard a delicate shot from Ferran from a pass by his best friend in the locker room, Pedri, who had gifted him a diagonal drawn with a ruler and compass.

This allowed Celta to stay alive, while Barça tried to control the game with a Pedri who had gone from less to more and the entry of De Jong. In the second half, the Blaugrana could not manage to seal the game, but they closed ranks and did not let a rival who wanted to liven up with the arrival of Iago Aspas grow. Fortunately, it would not change the outcome of a triumph that makes Barça a little more champion on an eventful night at the Camp Nou.