Pouring goals into Alaves, Barca takes the lead in La Liga in just 4 hours

Barca won 6-0 in their away match against Alaves on the evening of February 11, thereby taking the lead in La Liga for about four hours before having to return it to Real.

Goals: Suarez 37', 67', Neymar 40', Messi 59', Alexis 63' own goal, Rakitic 65'

Visiting Alaves, the team that beat Barca 2-1 in the first leg at Nou Camp and also the team that just won the ticket to the King's Cup final, Messi and his teammates may not have expected to win like a clean sheet in tennis.

After two quick-fire goals late in the first half, Barca added four more in just nine minutes of the second half. The Catalan giants went two points clear of Real and led La Liga for around four hours, before having to give it back. In the late game, Real beat Osasuna 3-1.

In Barca's brilliant performance, Luis Suarez was perhaps the best player. He did not stand out with his dribbling and assists like Messi, but the striker wearing the number 9 shirt knew how to appear in the right place at the right time, while handling the ball skillfully to bring advantage.

It was Suarez who opened the scoring in the 37th minute, when victory was becoming difficult to determine. The Uruguayan striker also contributed to the assists that brought the score to 2-0, 4-0, passed the ball to Rakitic to make it 5-0 and sealed the victory himself. After the match, Goal gave Suarez four stars (out of five), the same as Messi, and also awarded him the title of Best Player.

Suarez was too fast and sharp for the Alaves defense. Photo: Reuters

Before suffering a heavy defeat, Alaves surprisingly did not appear to be too inferior to Barca. The Basque team almost opened the scoring if Theo Hernandez had not shot off goalkeeper Ter Stegen's hand in a one-on-one situation. At the beginning of the second half, when the score was 2-0 in favor of Barca, Alaves also missed two good opportunities to reduce the gap. If they had a high-class striker, the home team could have made a surprise.

After a difficult start, Barca started to play more smoothly thanks to the decision to speed up. Facing the fast coordination of the opponent's attack, Alaves appeared to be a bit slow and could not keep up. The first result was that the entire home defense stood still as Suarez rushed down to finish past goalkeeper Pacheco in the 37th minute. Not long after that, the coordination between Suarez and Messi also made the Alaves defenders lose their breath, thereby leading to Neymar's tap-in to double the gap.

Alaves paid the price after Theo Hernandez (in blue and white striped shirt) missed the opening chance.

If the first two goals opened up the possibility of victory for Barca, Messi's goal to make it 3-0 really broke Alaves's will to attack. After M10 ran into the penalty area and scored a cross-angle goal, the home team no longer had enough composure to make sharp attacks like before. Not only that, goalkeeper Pacheco had to pick the ball out of the net three more times after Barca's fast counter-attacks.

The victory not only helped Barca avenge their 1-2 loss in the first leg, but also had the effect of destroying Alaves' confidence. The two teams will meet again in the King's Cup final at the end of May.

Barca's victory is also a warning to PSG. Next week, PSG will host the first leg of the Champions League round of 16.

According to VNE