Valencia 3-1 Barcelona, La Liga: Recap

Photo by JOSE JORDAN / AFP via Getty Images Barcelona’s season has officially come to an end as the Catalans suffered a 3-1 defeat to Valencia at Mestalla on Saturday night’s La Liga finale. The back-to-back champions had nothing to play for but still took the lead thanks to Robert Lewandowski’s last goal for the club, but Valencia completed a furious comeback at home to finally end a run of humiliating losses against the Blaugrana . Reactions & Observations Valencia were determined to avoid another humiliating loss to Barça and came out with plenty of energy and intensity, pressing high up the pitch to force mistakes and create chances.

The home team had several good moments early on, and missed a few strong opportunities to take the lead. Barça didn’t have much to play for and it showed as their performance was disjointed and lacking true invention up front. Ferran Torres is always motivated against his former club and was Barça’s most active player on the pitch, but the best chance of the half fell to Robert Lewandowski who headed a corner-kick against the post just before halftime.

The game was goalless at the break, and Barça were lucky to not be losing to a Valencia side that outplayed and outworked them in the first half. Valencia continued to apply pressure to begin the final period but were punished by Barça’s departing legend, as Lewandowski deflected a shot from Ferran into the net to score the 120th and final goal of his amazing Blaugrana career and put the Catalans ahead. But Valencia answered quickly thanks to an error by young Xavi Espart, who came on at halftime but gave the ball away to Javi Guerra who fired it home and equalized for the hosts shortly after the hour mark.

Then Luis Rioja gave them the lead five minutes later, and Valencia completed the comeback to send the crowd into a frenzy. Barça tried to pull off a late equalizer and Andreas Christensen had two huge chances denied by Stole Dimitrievski saves, and Guido Rodríguez scored from the edge of the box shortly before the final whistle came to end Barça’s season on a losing note. The result and the game mean nothing, and drawing conclusions from a dead rubber on Matchday 38 less than three weeks from the World Cup is silly.