Raphinha header gives 10 man Barcelona narrow win over Valencia

Despite being reduced to 10 men for the final 30 minutes, Raphinha's first-half header was enough to give La Liga leaders Barcelona a slim victory against struggling Valencia on Sunday. Even though they frequently appeared to be the inferior team at Camp Nou, Barcelona, who had just suffered a discouraging loss to mediocre Almeria the previous weekend, managed to collect three fought-for points. They are in first place in LaLiga with 62 points, nine more than Real Madrid, who drew 0-0 against Betis later on Sunday. Valencia is in bottom place with 23 points after winning only one of their previous 10 league games. Raphinha, who had a number of early chances before tipping a header past the goalie following a wonderful long ball from midfielder, In the fifteenth minute, Sergio Busquets. Raphinha and Ansu Fati had chances to increase Barca's advantage, but Valencia rebounded from the early setback to control play and had many good chances to draw the game thanks to missed efforts from Thierry Correia, Samuel Lino, and Ilaix Moriba. Hugo Guillamon's handball inside the box in the 55th minute cost Barcelona a wonderful chance to double their advantage after Valencia came back from halftime in control. When Ferran Torres missed the goal with his penalty attempt, it was squandered. Nevertheless, five minutes later, defender Ronald Araujo was dismissed for a last-man foul on Hugo Duro, and Barcelona struggled to maintain their advantage for the next 30 minutes. Jesus Vazquez, Fran Perez, and Yunus Musah had excellent opportunities to tie the score, while Valencia players protested ineffectively in the 85th minute over what they believed to be a blatant foul by Franck Kessie on Perez inside the penalty area. Xavi Hernandez, the coach of Barcelona, said Movistar Plus, "We have endured too much today. "After the red card, we played strong defence, but the second goal should have been scored first. We frequently win games like this, but we failed to do it today owing to a lack of efficiency, thus we were forced to play through pain until the very end. It's a learning opportunity."