Sevilla surrender lead to Barca after Alaves draw
Sevilla slipped off the top of La Liga on Sunday night as they could only draw 1-1 at Alaves, whose comfortable protection of their unbeaten home record allowed champions Barcelona to climb back to the league’s summit. Alaves’ winger Jony slammed the ball into the roof of the net from close range to give them the lead in the 37th minute, despite protests from Sevilla that Jonathan Calleri was in an offside position when he provided the cross for the goal.
Home goalkeeper Fernando Pacheco made a fine save to prevent Franco Vazquez equalising soon after the break but could not stop Wissam Ben Yedder’s 78th minute equaliser, as the Frenchman nipped in behind the defence to turn in Pablo Sarabia’s cross.
It meant Alaves, who beat European champions Real Madrid 1-0 at their Mendizorrotza stadium earlier in the campaign, and Atletico Madrid remain the only teams yet to lose at home in the league this season. The Basque side resisted Sevilla’s attempts to grab a late winner with some ease and almost won themselves when Darko Brasanac headed against the post and keeper Tomas Vaclik nearly pushed the ball over the line before finally grabbing hold.
Sevilla slid down to second place in the standings on 27 points after 14 games, one behind leaders Barca. Atletico Madrid are third on 25, while Alaves are fourth with 24, one point above fifth-placed Real Madrid.
Earlier, Ousmane Dembele took another step on the road to redemption as Barcelona eased past Villarreal. Dembele, dropped last month by coach Ernesto Valverde, was making his second consecutive start and repaid the faith by teeing up Gerard Pique’s opening goal in a comfortable 2-0 win at the Camp Nou.
Carles Alena, the 20-year-old Spaniard also regarded as a star of the future, came off the bench to add a late flourish, chipping in his first La Liga goal and Barca’s second after a defence-splitting pass from Lionel Messi. “Alena has earned his step up to the first team,” Valverde said. Villarreal stayed 17th, with the pressure mounting on coach Javier Calleja, who has overseen only one league win since September.
Alena, a dainty attacking midfielder with 13 years training in Barca’s academy, is likely to enjoy many more celebrations in front of the club’s fans but for Dembele, the sense was time had been running out.
Valverde’s patience with the 21-yearold appeared to be wearing thin when he was dropped against Real Betis three weeks ago but a late equaliser against Atletico earned a reprieve, and this was another lively performance.
“He played a great game and was one of our outstanding players,” Valverde said. “He has so many assets — penetration, dribbling, shooting, speed, confidence, daring. Let’s hope it continues like this.”
Heartening too for Valverde will have been the clean sheet, Barcelona’s first in the league since the second game of the season back in August.