At the reception for Celta Vigo, coach Valverde unexpectedly paired um umtiti to play as a central defender with Pique instead of Lenglet as usual. Up front, Luis Suarez has returned from injury but has not played since the beginning, giving up the position to his junior Fati.
Like most of their visitors at Nou Camp, Celta Vigo have chosen to play tight defense and lurk for counter-attack opportunities. This is a reasonable choice for the Japanese team in the context of their crisis with 4 consecutive losses before the away trip to Nou Camp.
In the first minutes, against a Barca team that was not in the best form, Celta Vigo were confident in playing against and were the team with the most possession. But the first dangerous opportunity still belonged to Barca in the 14th minute when captain Messi fired a rather dangerous left-footed kick at the 16m50 line. Unfortunately, the ball did not go hard enough to defeat goalkeeper Blanco.
In general, in the first 20 minutes of the match, Barca could not control the game and could not impose their style of play on the away team. In the context of a deadlock, Barcelona was lucky to receive a penalty due to a foul on the ball in the penalty area by center back Joseph Aidoo in the 23rd minute. On the 11m mark, Messi deceived goalkeeper Ruben Blanco, scoring the opening goal for Barcelona.
In the 37th minute, Celta's net raided for the second time after Messi's close-range shot, but the referee had determined that Arthur Melo had made an assist for Messi when the ball was still out of the court.
In the following minutes, Celta Vigo pushed up their attacking formation to play more positively and unexpectedly equalized thanks to Lucas Olaza's great free kick in the 42nd minute.
It seemed that the first half of the match ended with a score of 1-1 but in the first minute of extra time, Messi responded with a supervisory free kick, helping the Catalan team take a 2-1 lead.
Everything went dreamily for Barca when at the beginning of the second half (48 minutes), also from a top free kick, Messi once again scored, helping the home team take a 3-1 lead, thereby completing his own hat-trick.
After taking the lead, Barca played leisurely but still continuously created many dangerous opportunities to threaten the away team's goal, but neither Messi nor Antoine Griezmann could succeed. It was not until the 85th minute that Sergio Busquets scored to seal the score at 4-1 with a powerful volley. This was the Spanish midfielder's first goal in La Liga this season.
Defeating Celta Vigo with a score of 4-1, Barca quickly ended the disappointing streak (1 draw, 1 loss) and defended their top spot in La Liga 2019-2020 due to a better goal difference than Real (+18 compared to +16). This victory also partly relieved the great pressure on coach Valverde. In addition, Barca also reclaimed the top spot in La Liga from rival Real Madrid.
After this match, Barca entered a nearly 2-week break to make way for international matches. The Catalan team will return to the La Liga arena in the away match Leganes in round 14 on November 23.
