Liga, 38th day – Barça beaten by Villarreal at Camp Nou under the whistles (0-2), Atlético and Sevilla win

Barça ends its difficult season on a false note. The Blaugrana lost at Camp Nou to Villarreal on Sunday during the 38th day of La Liga (0-2). Masters of the ball but powerless until the end, they cracked in front of much more realistic visitors. Alfonso Pedraza opened the scoring at the end of the first period (41st), Moi Gomez doubled it at the start of the second (55th). The Yellow Submarine thus finished in 7th place and qualified for the Europa League Conference.

The Barcelonans were already guaranteed to finish in 2nd place, far behind the Madrid champion (13 points in the end). They simply wanted to deliver one last victory to the Camp Nou spectators and soon put their foot on the ball in the very cautious but well-organized visitors’ camp. Ferran Torres requested Geronimo Rulli with a powerful recovery after a corner (7th). Then, the Argentine goalkeeper did not have to work for a long time because Sergio Busquets placed his heavy shot just above the target (20th).

Ultra-effective Villarreal

Barça pushed but above all lacked accuracy in the last pass. That back not supported enough by Clément Lenglet put Marc-André Ter Stegen in difficulty (34th). The German goalkeeper got away with it but then couldn’t do anything against Pedraza, superbly served on the left of the Barcelona area by Dani Parejo after a great collective action (0-1, 41st).

The Groguets opened the scoring on their second shot of the match, they broke on the third after a gift. Adama Traoré came back to defend in his area and recovered the ball but sent it straight to Gomez who checked at the penalty spot before shooting Ter Stegen (0-2, 55th). In the process, Xavi replaced Traoré and Pierre-Eymerick Aubameyang to launch Ansu Fati and Ousmane Dembélé (57th).

Barça still surprised at Camp Nou

Memphis Depay also came into play (71st) but the entrants could not bring anything against the perfectly oiled tactics of the Yellow Submarine, the one which allowed him to eliminate Juventus then Bayern and to shake Liverpool in Champions League. Frenkie de Jong thought he scored but Fati was offside (73rd) then Dembélé’s powerful shot only grazed the target (77th) and Depay came up against the impeccable Raul Albiol one last time (90th + 4) .

With only 3 shots on target out of 14 and too little reaction, Barça suffered a 5th defeat at home in La Liga this season, the 7th in all competitions. Unai Emery will be able to fully savor his first victory at Camp Nou after 13 visits. Villarreal, who was threatened by Athletic Bilbao, succeeded and validated his ticket for the C4. The Basques have indeed cracked on the lawn of Seville FC (0-1). Rafa Mir scored the only goal of the match (68th) and the Andalusians finished in 4th place behind Atlético de Madrid. The Colchoneros won at Real Sociedad (1-2) thanks to goals from Rodrigo De Paul (50th) and Angel Correa (68th) while Jon Guridi reduced the gap in added time.