Valencia 3-1 Barcelona: champions go down at Mestalla and Valencia's reward goes elsewhere
Robert Lewandowski had given the champions the lead on 61 minutes. From there it took Valencia five minutes to equalise through Javi Guerra, five more to go ahead through Luis Rioja, and Guido Rodríguez closed the night with a third deep into the seven minutes of stoppage time at Mestalla.
The match did not have league stakes for Barcelona. They had clinched a second straight La Liga title at Camp Nou earlier in the month and arrived in Valencia having long since switched into final-day rotation mode. Valencia, by contrast, were chasing a European place that the rest of the league did not leave for them.
Lewandowski first, then a 10-minute Valencia spell
The first half stayed goalless. Barcelona dominated the ball, finishing the match with 76.3 percent possession, without finding a way through, and Valencia waited for the kind of turnover that would not come until the second period.
The opening came after the break. Lewandowski's finish looked like another Barcelona afternoon being managed without alarm. Five minutes later, Javi Guerra drove into the box off a Valencia press and equalised. Five minutes after that, Luis Rioja made it 2-1, and the noise inside Mestalla turned. Barcelona had no second wind in them. Guido Rodríguez closed the night seven minutes into added time.
Yamal absent, Barcelona on cruise control
Lamine Yamal sat the match out with a hamstring injury, which mattered to Barcelona's attacking creativity more than the result mattered to their points total. The weeks since the title was secured had been used to look at squad players, and a final-day defeat to a mid-table side will get explained away as rotation. It will still go in the books as the season's last fixture, and Barcelona's defenders went off the Mestalla pitch having shipped three.
Valencia's almost-summer
For Valencia the night ran the wrong way. They had spent the spring climbing out of relegation talk into the back end of the European race, and a win against the league champions was the sort of result that says a club has turned a corner. It was not enough. The European place Mestalla was singing toward in the 71st minute went elsewhere on the scoreboard, and the home dressing room finished the night with a famous result but no continental fixtures to plan for next August.
The Mestalla crowd of 46,457 stayed to the final whistle anyway. Valencia had played a season that, in December, looked like it would end somewhere worse than mid-table.
Related Tags:
Cricket Updates
