BARCELONA, Spain (AP) \u2014 Raphinha set up two early goals and Dani Olmo scored a double as Barcelona fought back for a 3-1 win over Alaves in La Liga on Saturday following the poor showing at Chelsea in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal also delivered an inspired performance to shake off Barcelona\u2019s 3-0 loss at Stamford Bridge midweek, when he was unable to show his usual attacking flair. The 18-year-old star scored Barcelona\u2019s equalizer and went close twice to adding another goal against Alaves, including a shot off the post late in the first half.<\/p>\n
A key player in Barcelona\u2019s domestic title double last season, Raphinha looked like his old incisive self at Camp Nou in his first start in two months since recovering from a right hamstring injury. He played limited minutes in a win over Athletic Bilbao last weekend and at Chelsea as a late substitute before Hansi Flick gave him the start.<\/p>\n
Raphina twice raced behind the defense on the left side of the area before squaring passes for Yamal and Olmo to score in the eighth and 26th minutes.<\/p>\n
Olmo added a third goal in stoppage time when he worked a one-two passing combination with Yamal before firing home.<\/p>\n
Barcelona\u2019s fourth straight win in La Liga lifted it two points ahead of Real Madrid at the top of the standings before Madrid visits Girona on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Barcelona got another boost with the return of Pedri Gonz\u00e1lez after spending a month without its top playmaker.<\/p>\n
Pedri went on with half an hour left, replacing Raphinha. The Spain midfielder had been out a month with a left-leg muscle injury.<\/p>\n
Yamal\u2019s shot into the top of the net cancelled out an opening-minute goal by Pablo Ib\u00e1nez, when Barcelona failed to defend an Alaves corner and the attacking midfielder tapped in from close range.<\/p>\n
Alaves, which has struggled to score all season, proved much more dangerous than expected. With the score at 1-1, Barcelona goalkeeper Joan Garc\u00eda had to stretch to block a shot by Calebe.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere<\/p>\n
Mallorca striker Vedat Muriqi scored twice but Osasuna got two late goals for a 2-2 draw in the Balearic Islands.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n
Joseph Wilson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BARCELONA, Spain (AP) \u2014 Raphinha set up two early goals and Dani Olmo scored a double as Barcelona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-314808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}