Getafe 1-1 Barça: Recap
The finishing issues from the end of 2024 came back to haunt them again
Barcelona’s perfect start to 2025 has come to an end as the Blaugrana dropped points for the seventh time in their last eight La Liga matches, all thanks to a 1-1 draw away to Getafe at the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez on Saturday evening in their first league game of the new year. Barça completely dominated the entire match and created more than enough to win comfortably on the road, but the familiar finishing issues from the end of 2024 came back to haunt them in a big way as the Catalans dropped two more points and failed to make up ground in the title race.
FIRST HALF
Barça made an excellent start on the road, dominating possession and moving the ball well between the lines to find spaces inside Getafe’s low block. Their strong start was rewarded early on thanks to a sensational assist by Pedri, who played an amazing through ball to find the run of Jules Kounde who had his first shot saved and then passed the rebound into the net to put the visitors in front.
The Blaugrana continued to dominate the action and create big scoring opportunities, but struggled to finish those chances and slowly but surely allowed Getafe to slow down the pace of the game and start frustrating the Catalans.
And with 10 minutes to go in the half Barça finally paid for their lack of efficiency up front: in what was Getafe’s only attacking move of the entire period, Carles Aleñá’s cross found Coba da Costa who had his volley saved by Iñaki Peña, but Mauro Arambarri was right there to score an easy tap-in to equalize on the rebound.
Barça had a couple of huge chances to retake the lead but continued to miss them, and had to settle for a 1-1 scoreline as the halftime whistle was blown. The Catalans’ performance was quite good at the break, but they needed to finish their chances in the second half to make sure of the three points.
SECOND HALF
Hansi Flick made a change at halftime with Frenkie de Jong coming on for Marc Casadó, looking to add more pasing quality in the attacking half as Barça faced an even more defensively focused Getafe side, who defended even deeper and more compact as they tried to hold on to a point.
Barça completely dominated the ball and made plenty of passes in and around the penalty area, but did very little to truly threaten the home team’s defense and mostly tried to pass the ball into the net. They barely attempted any shots from distance, and made it quite easy for Getafe to stay back and absorb pressure.
Dani Olmo and Ferran Torres came on to try and add a different dynamic to the attack, but Barça were still not close to a winner as we reached the final 10 minutes. Lamine Yamal almost created the spectacular out of nowhere with a wonderful ball over the top to find Raphinha at the back post, but the Brazilian missed his half-volley and Barça wasted another big moment.
The pressure continued to increase on the visitors to find the winning goal at the death, and that’s when Getafe did everything in their power to completely kill the pace of the game with their usual dirty and annoying time-wasting tactics that frustrated Barça’s players and coaches and prevented them from creating a late opportunity.
No goals were scored in the dying seconds, and the final whistle came to share the spoils between the two sides. Getafe away continues to be one of Barça’s most difficult games every season, but they should have won this one easily and only have themselves to blame for not taking all three points.
Getafe: Soria; Iglesias, Duarte, Alderete, Rico; Djené; Aleñá (Pérez 66’), Arambarri (Yellu 49’ (Álvaro 66’)), Milla, Da Costa (Bekhoucha 90+2’); Uche
Goal: Arambarri (34’)
Barcelona: Peña; Kounde, Araujo, Cubarsí, Balde; Gavi (Olmo 62’), Casadó (De Jong 46’), Pedri; Yamal, Lewandowski (Ferran 81’), Raphinha
Goal: Kounde (9’)
Source: barcablaugranes.com
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