First half goals from Sergi Roberto and Robert Lewandowski were enough to earn Barcelona a seventh straight win in La Liga.
Despite Barca dominating the opening exchanges, it was actually Cadiz who would find the back of the net first. The goal however, scored by Roger after he latched onto a ball over the top before drifting past Eric Garcia and firing into net, was ruled out for offside.
Almost immediately after that offside goal was scored, Ferran Torres came close to making it 1-0 at the other end. The lively forward slipped past his marker on the right side of the penalty area brilliantly, but was unable curl his subsequent strike toward the right side of the far post.
The home side did eventually take the lead in the dying embers of the first half through Sergi Roberto following another wonderful bit of play from Ferran. The ex-Man City jinked past three Cadiz defenders on the right flank before chipping the back post to Lewandowski. Lewa’s headed effort would be saved but would then kindly ricochet into Roberto’s path, and he duly smashed the ball past Jeremias Ledesma.
Soon after it was two, with Robert Lewandowski drilling into the bottom corner of the net from the edge of the penalty area.
Lewa came close to scoring another at the start of the second half, lobbing the ball over the Cadiz goalkeeper and onto the crossbar after beating the offside trap.
Cadiz almost found a route back into the game in the final 10 minutes, when Chris Ramos burst past Eric Garcia before stabbing the ball toward the bottom right corner of the net but Marc-Andre ter Stegen got down quickly to tip the strike on the post and out for a corner kick.
Five minutes later the visitors would hit the post again, this time Anthony Lozano got his head on a wicked delivery from the right flank to steer to ball onto the foot of the left post.
GK – Marc-Andre ter Stegen – 6/10 – Made a brilliant save in the final 10 minutes.
RB – Jules Kounde – 5/10 – Worked hard on the right.
CB – Andreas Christensen – 6/10 – His distribution was very good all evening.
CB – Eric Garcia – 4/10 – Too easily beaten on a few occasions both on the ground and in the air.
LB – Alejandro Balde – 5/10 – Lively on the left but lacked end product in the final third.
CM – Sergi Roberto – 8/10 – Bagged a goal and an assist. Nice work buddy.
CM – Frenkie de Jong – 6/10 – Kept things ticking over in midfield throughout.
CM – Gavi – 5/10 – Tidy but not as effective as he is when he plays further forward.
RW – Ferran Torres – 8/10 – So direct throughout. Played like he was hellbent on making an impression on Xavi, and we’d be surprised if he didn’t.
ST – Robert Lewandowski – 7/10 – Finally scored at Camp Nou again.
LW – Ansu Fati – 3/10 – Not quite at the races on Sunday.
SUB – Franck Kessie – 4/10.
SUB – Raphinha – N/A.
SUB – Angel Alarcon – N/A.
Credit: 90min.com
