{"id":538824,"date":"2026-03-22T15:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/538824\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T15:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:48:10","slug":"barcelona-1-0-rayo-vallecano-ronald-araujo-goal-earns-la-liga-leaders-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/538824\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona 1-0 Rayo Vallecano: Ronald Araujo goal earns La Liga leaders victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Barcelona moved seven points clear at the top of La Liga with a narrow victory over Rayo Vallecano at Spotify Nou Camp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ronald Araujo headed home a Joao Cancelo corner to give the hosts the lead after 24 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, they could have been behind in the first minute when Carlos Martin had a tap in from six yards, but goalkeeper Joan Garcia raced out to close down the angle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That was Rayo&#8217;s only shot on target in a largely uneventful first half.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Raphinha fired an effort towards the top corner but it took a deflection and Rayo goalkeeper Augusto Batalla did well to push it on to the crossbar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After the break, Garcia produced a brilliant save to stop Unai Lopez&#8217;s close-range header from drawing Rayo level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pacha Espino curled a shot over the bar for Rayo in the 83rd minute as Barca clung on for a vital win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Real Madrid face rivals Atletico Madrid later on Sunday (20:00 GMT) as they look to close the gap back to four points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hansi Flick&#8217;s side travel to Atletico after the international break on Saturday, 4 April before facing them twice more in the Champions League quarter-finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona moved seven points clear at the top of La Liga with a narrow victory over Rayo Vallecano&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-538824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}