Barça grits its teeth to win in Porto

Gritting your teeth and for the minimum. This is how Barça managed to win a long-suffering victory against Porto that allows them to climb to the top of their group in the Champions League.. Ferran Torres, an emergency replacement for Lewandowski forced to go to the locker room early due to a strong rival challenge, was in charge on this occasion of scoring a goal that was worth its weight in gold for the Blaugrana.. In the end, 0-1 was enough for Xavi's team, against an opponent who harassed and knocked down their goal and who had one more on the pitch after Gavi was sent off for a double yellow card.. [Narrative and statistics]

Football often has unexpected twists and turns.. Although Porto had the clearest options to open the scoring, with continuous harassment of the Barça area, it was Barça that went into the break ahead in the bright. Ferran Torres, replacement for Lewandowski who left the field after half an hour due to a severe blow to his left ankle, took perfect advantage of a good assist from Gündogan after a mistake by Romario Baró to open the scoring in added time in the first half.. His delivery was of no use to the locals.. Nor, claiming a penalty that was not awarded as such by either the referee or the VAR.. No matter how well they had done until then, everything went uphill for them in just a breath.

After the restart, Porto took to the field with all their might.. And it didn't take long for him to have a great option, through Pepé who stood alone against Ter Stegen, who Koundé, at the limit, managed to send for a corner.. The Portuguese team tried to recover its most incisive version. The same one that put water up to Barça's neck at the start of the first half. The Barcelona defense, however, was much more solid in this case..

Many options of Porto

And it was precisely that solidity that also allowed Xavi's men to have a little more control of the game.. But, even so, it was once again the Portuguese who were most clearly around the goal, after a mistake in the Barça start culminated in a shot by Taremi that missed very close to the post.. And Wendell, shortly after, would test the mettle under the sticks of a very concentrated Ter Stegen.

The Barça goalkeeper still had to make a couple more good saves. One, forced shot by Taremi. The other, in a distant shot of Galen. Things could have gotten complicated for Barça in the final stretch of the duel. In the first instance, due to a penalty awarded in the first instance by Anthony Taylor for a handball by Cancelo, which was finally invalidated at the request of the VAR due to a previous handball by Eustaquio. In the second, due to a scissors goal by Taremi, which was in turn invalidated due to offside. The locals tried again and again. In a thousand possible ways. But the three points, in the end, went to Barcelona.