Barcelona 1-1 Espanyol: Two red cards, late saves and VAR chaos as fiery derby ends in draw

Barcelona returned to the top of La Liga with a 1-1 draw against Espanyol but will consider two points dropped in a match which saw two red cards.

The Azulgrana dominated the early stages and should have had more reward than their solitary goal from Marcos Alonso in the seventh minute.

In the second half the game appeared to drifting when Espanyol won a penalty from nowhere 17 minutes from time as Alonso inadvertently stood on the heel of Joselu.

The veteran striker got up to slot home the penalty before a crazy end to the game where 12 yellow cards were handed out and Jordi Alba and Vinicius Souza were sent off. Referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz appeared to have sent off two Espanyol players only for VAR to intervene after some delay to reduce it to just one.

Espanyol were grateful to goalkeeper Alvaro Fernandez for a string of fine saves late on to keep the scores level.

Barcelona are ahead of Real Madrid on goal difference, while Espanyol raise a position to 16th.

TALKING POINT

As crazy a refereeing performance as you will see – The world got to see the erratic nature of Mateu Lahoz when he dished out ten yellow cards (including one second yellow to Denzel Dumfries) in the Argentina-Netherlands quarter-final. In this match, the referee’s performance plunged further with the strangest display which took over the game for the last twenty minutes. In truth this was one of the least spiteful derby matches you would see, yet 14 bookings were given and three red cards brandished – the last of which for Leandro Cabrera negated, despite him seeing to deliberately catch Robert Lewandowski’s head with his boot. Barcelona cannot blame their failure to win on him, this was due to erratic finishing and a fine goalkeeping performance, but they will surely hope he is not in charge of them in major matches this season.

PLAYER OF THE MATCH

Alvaro Fernandez (Espanyol) – The visiting goalkeeper made five stops during the match, most in the first half when Barcelona were dominating but it was the two late in the second half which won him the award. The diving lunge to his right to deny Andreas Christensen’s low, bullet header was immense, but just a minute later he was forced to make a different stop when Robert Lewandowski was through on goal and tried to put the ball between his legs only to see the effort blocked.

PLAYER RATINGS

Barcelona: Ter Stegen 6; Roberto 6, Christensen 7, Alonso 7, Alba 7; Gavi 7, F. de Jong 7, Pedri 6; Raphinha 6, Ansu Fati 5, Lewandowski 6.

Subs: Busquets 6, Dembele 6, Torres 6, Balde 6, Kounde 6.

Espanyol: Fernandez 8*; Gil 6, Cabrera 6, Sergi Gomez 6, Calero 6, Olivan 6; Vini Souza 5, Darder 6; Nico Melamed 6, Braithwaite 5, Joselu 7.

Subs: Exposito 6, Puado 5, Keddari 6, Vidal 6, Sanchez 6.

MATCH HIGHLIGHTS

7′ GOAL FOR BARCELONA! Awful defending from Espanyol with no one challenging for a header from the corner and after Lewandowski couldn’t get a good initial contact, Christensen headed across the six-yard box for his centre back partner Alonso to nod home.

71′ PENALTY FOR ESPANYOL! Wow…Joselu down in the box after an inadvertent clip of the striker’s heels by Alonso.

73′ GOAL FOR ESPANYOL! Joselu has the match all square. He slotted down the middle as ter Stegen moved to his left.

82′ TWO MORE SENT OFF!!! De Souza gets a second yellow card and the other, a straight red, is for Cabrera for making contact with his boot on the prone Lewandowski.

84′ REFEREE CHECKING CABRERA RED CARD… This seems the least contentious of the decisions quite frankly. Even if it is not a straight red card offence, it would be his second yellow card.

85′ CABRERA RED CARD WITHDRAWN! This is a strange game.

88′ GREAT STOP FROM FERNANDEZ! Christensen gets up to meet a corner with a firm downward header but the keeper dives to his right and pushes the effort away.

KEY STAT

• 17 – The number of cards shown in the match, not counting the straight red card for Leandro Cabrera which was rescinded.