{"id":386646,"date":"2026-01-04T00:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/386646\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T00:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:51:07","slug":"espanyol-0-2-barcelona-jan-3-2026-game-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/386646\/","title":{"rendered":"Espanyol 0-2 Barcelona (Jan 3, 2026) Game Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Goalkeeper Joan Garc\u00eda<\/a> shrugged off the jeers and vitriol in his return to Espanyol<\/a> and Barcelona<\/a> teammate Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez<\/a> set up two late goals for a 2-0 victory in a heated Catalan derby on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Ferm\u00edn assisted fellow substitutes Dani Olmo<\/a> and Robert Lewandowski<\/a> in the 86th and 90th minutes to tilt the match in favor of the LaLiga leaders.<\/p>\n

But the credit for the win went to Garc\u00eda, who made superb saves to frustrate an Espanyol attack that dominated all but the final period.<\/p>\n

The final score hid a superb effort by fifth-placed Espanyol. Pere Milla<\/a> and Roberto Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a> drew save after save from Garc\u00eda, who was playing his first game at Espanyol since he left the “parakeets” last summer for their top rivals.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

His highlight came in the 39th when Garc\u00eda used a reflex one-hand save to paw a point-blank header by Milla over his crossbar.<\/p>\n

Espanyol went as far as installing a thin mesh barrier behind the goals at RCDE Stadium to impede any object from being thrown toward the goalie from the stands.<\/p>\n

That did not dissuade the section of the club’s most fervent young supporters from holding up signs with the image of a rat in Barcelona’s burgundy-and-blue colors while shouting at Garc\u00eda, a former fan favourite.<\/p>\n

Barcelona increased their lead over second-placed Real Madrid<\/a> to seven points before the latter host\u00a0Real Betis<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Goalkeeper Joan Garc\u00eda shrugged off the jeers and vitriol in his return to Espanyol and Barcelona teammate Ferm\u00edn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-386646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386646","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=386646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}