Barcelona thrashed Valencia by 4-2 to clinch a superb win in La Liga

La Blaugrana appeared tough to beat Valencia in the 33rd week of the La Liga 2023/2024 duel on Monday (29th April 2024). The Hosts won with a convincing score of 4-2 while playing at Lluis Companys, Barca must continue to gain points to secure second place in the Spanish League standings. Valencia is also carrying out a mission to try to move up to the European zone.

This time Valencia took the lead following a mistake from Marc Andre ter Stegen. However, Barca showed their class by scoring important goals in the second half, they smashed four goals this time came from Fermin Lopez (22') and a hat trick from Robert Lewandowski (49', 82', 90+3'), while Valencia fought back through goals from Hugo Duro (27') and Pepelu (38'). This victory maintains Barca's position in second place in the 2023/2024 Spanish League standings with a score of 73 points from 33 matches while the visitors Valencia is stuck in 8th place.

The match started straight away with high intensity when the Hosts tried to take the initiative to attack. However, the Visitors were also ready to battle out hard against Barca, 10 minutes into the game. In the 22nd minute, Barca broke the deadlock, starting from Cancelo's movement on the left side, the ball was received by Raphinha who then sent a cross. Fermin headed the ball accurately and Barca made it 1-0.

In the 27th minute, Valencia equalized with Ter Stegen's fatal mistake. Receiving a back-pass, the German goalkeeper tried to outwit Hugo Duro but failed however he then stole the ball and just pushed it into the empty goal and made it 1-1 for Valencia. In the 38th minute, Valencia took the lead when Araujo dropped Peter in the restricted area, the referee pointed to the spot. Pepelu stepped forward as executor and beat Ter Stegen convincingly and extended the lead to 2-1.

Just before the first half, 45+3 minutes was a disaster for Valencia. Their goalkeeper, Mamardashvili was shown a straight red card for handball outside the penalty area in an attempt to stop Yamal's progress. The match resumed with quite an interesting situation. Valencia was leading with a score of 2-1, but they were missing a goalkeeper and were short of players. In the 49th minute, Barca equalized in the corner kick scheme, and Gundogan's lofted ball was headed hard by Lewandowski at the near post and equalized the score to 2-2. The Visitors continued to fight, but being outnumbered made it difficult for them to keep up with Barca's game and the match entered the final 10 minutes.

In the 82nd minute, Barca scored the third goal, starting from a corner kick, chaos broke out in the Valencia penalty box. The ball then deflected off Araujo's head and towards Lewandowski who was ready to head in and again took the lead of 3-2. In the 90+3 minute, Lewandowski completed a hat trick, the free kick was quite far from the penalty box, and Lewy curled a shot at the near post and completed his waited hattrick for Barca and sealed a 4-2 victory for the Hosts.

Barcelona vs Valencia match statistics

Shots: 27 - 5

Shots on target: 13 - 3

Ball possession: 80% - 20%

Passes: 738 - 186

Pass accuracy: 90% - 58%

Offense: 12 - 5

Yellow cards: 1 - 0

Red cards: 0 - 1

Offside: 2 - 2

Corner kick: 15 - 1