Barcelona extended their La Liga winning streak to seven games and will finish the weekend second in the table thanks to a wild 3-2 victory over Levante in one of the craziest matches of the season.
Barça’s first-half performance was hugely disappointing. The Blaugrana played with zero intensity and struggled from the very beginning with Levante’s man-to-man marking scheme, and they never managed to find rhythm in possession and kept losing the ball in bad positions. Levante were an excellent and the better team with and without the ball, and AJ Morales was unplayable upfront.
Morales almost scored a Goal of the Season contender after running through the entire Barça defense and almost walking the ball into the net, but Eric García made a huge clearance off the line. Levante deserved to go ahead and were never in trouble at the back thanks to a slow, unimaginative Barça attack.
First was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who headed home a perfect cross from Ousmane Dembélé to score the equalizer, then Gavi went on a sensational solo run through three defenders and set up Pedri who found the bottom corner with a perfect finish to put Barça in front.
Barça couldn’t capitalize on the momentum from the two goals and didn’t put Levante away, and the home team continued to push for a late equalizer. And they got a golden chance when Clément Lenglet came off the bench, made a stupid challenge on Dani Gómez inside the box and gave Levante a third penalty on the night. Gonzalo Melero stepped up to the spot, found the bottom corner and made it 2-2 with 10 minutes to go.
Levante weren’t content with just a point and continued to attack looking for the winner, which made the dying seconds absolutely wild as both teams were wide open at the back as they kept counter-attacking each other with reckless abandon. And just as it seemed like we were headed for a draw, Barça’s Super Sub came to the rescue: Big Luuk De Jong was sent from the bench to head home a perfect cross from Jordi Alba in injury time to give Barça the lead again.
