{"id":183224,"date":"2025-12-13T21:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T21:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/183224\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T21:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T21:58:09","slug":"fc-barcelona-2-0-osasuna-raphinha-to-the-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/183224\/","title":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona 2-0 Osasuna: Raphinha to the rescue!"},"content":{"rendered":"

FC Barcelona will be spending the night seven points clear at the top of the Liga table<\/a> after securing all three points from a difficult Saturday fixture against the defensively strong Osasuna.<\/p>\n

There was no dramatic comeback from behind this time, but that doesn\u2019t mean the game was any less nervy. The side from Pamplona kept Bar\u00e7a at bay for 70 minutes before Raphinha finally found a way through, and it was also the Brazilian who claimed the game-settling second in the closing minutes.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s now seven Liga wins in a row for Bar\u00e7a, who no matter what happens between now and December 31 will be going into 2025 as league leaders.<\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/p>\n

Torres denied<\/p>\n

The opener may have taken over an hour to emerge, but FC Barcelona looked to have taken a well-deserved lead a lot earlier than that. On 23 minutes, Marcus Rashford chipped the most exquisite ball onto Ferran Torres\u2019 head and the in-form striker, who had already come close on a couple of occasions, nodded home into the top left corner.<\/p>\n

Replays showed Torres was clearly onside, but the goal did not stand. The VAR room had spotted a peculiar offside in the build-up from a corner, and Spotify Camp Nou had celebrated for nothing.<\/p>\n

Bar\u00e7a were enjoying long periods of control, and chances were being made, but Osasuna made sure the Catalans didn\u2019t have everything their way, with Ante Budimir spearheading a number of dangerous forays into blaugrana territory.<\/p>\n

Osasuna solid<\/p>\n

Osasuna may have started the weekend down in 15th place, but they had actually conceded two goals fewer than leaders Bar\u00e7a. And they were showing us why. Try as Bar\u00e7a did, including a stunning overhead kick from Torres off an equally magnificent setup from Lamine Yamal, they reached half-time having found no way through the solid visiting defence or past Sergio Herrera\u2019s inspired goalkeeping.<\/p>\n

Bar\u00e7a raised their game in the second half. Barely a minute went by without their dizzying passes creating some kind of threat. They were doing nothing wrong, but neither was Osasuna\u2019s impressively organised defence. Attack after attack dwindled into nothing.<\/p>\n

Raphinha double<\/p>\n

With just over twenty minutes to go, there was a very worrying possibility that goals weren\u2019t going to come at all. Frustration was starting to set in\u2026 and then it came…<\/p>\n

Pedri was as majestic as he always is in the build-up, and Raphinha delivered the killer blow. His pumped fist in the air reflected blaugrana sentiment worldwide. They had done it at last!<\/p>\n

Raphinha had been having a quiet game by his own standards, but not only did he break the deadlock but he also made sure of the three points just as Osasuna were rearing up for a late push of their own.<\/p>\n

Jules Kounde\u2019s ball into the killer zone was cleared in the wrong direction by the Osasuna defence and the Brazilian was ready at the far post to tap home and make it 2-0. That put the game nicely to bed. Three more points for the rapidly expanding collection.<\/p>\n

Bar\u00e7a now travel to Guadalajara for a Copa del Rey game on Tuesday night, and their final league fixture of the season takes them to Villarreal next Sunday at 4.15pm CET. Let’s see out the year with a couple more wins!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona will be spending the night seven points clear at the top of the Liga table after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,4277],"class_list":["post-183224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}