Barcelona Escapes Collapse Against Levante
Barcelona flirted with collapse in Valencia, then escaped with all the swagger of a side that still expects to win every week.
For an hour at the Estadio Ciudad de Valencia, it looked routine. Training-ground stuff. Within five minutes, teenager Xavi Espart had swept in his first senior goal, a composed finish that settled any early nerves and underlined why the club is so excited about him.
The second arrived with the kind of fluency that has quickly become a hallmark of Hansi Flick’s side. Raphinha stitched the move together with sharp, incisive play on the flank, and Lamine Yamal arrived in the box to tuck home from close range. Two goals up, barely out of second gear, Barcelona were purring.
Levante, though, refused to play the role of willing victims.
Yamal made it 3-0 early in the second half, this time from the penalty spot, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way and seemingly killing the contest. A teenager with the calm of a veteran, a team three goals clear, a stadium braced for a procession.
Then the game turned.
Barcelona’s intensity dipped, their control loosened, and Levante sensed life where minutes earlier there had been none. Ivan Romero pounced with just over 10 minutes left, punishing a mistake from Espart and dragging the hosts back into the contest. What had been a gentle evening for the league leaders suddenly felt edgy.
The pressure cranked up again in the 88th minute. Roger Brugue struck to make it 3-2, and the stadium erupted. Every Barcelona touch drew whistles. Every Levante attack carried menace. The leaders, who had been cruising, now looked rattled.
Flick knew it. On the touchline, he cut a restless figure, fully aware his team had invited trouble. He later took the blame for the first Levante goal, admitting a delayed substitution had cost them dearly.
“The first goal was my fault,” he said. “We wanted to make a change, but I said to wait until the next break – and then it happens.”
Barcelona were hanging on. The passes lost their crispness, the decision-making frayed. Levante poured forward, chasing an improbable equaliser.
Then Karim Adeyemi ended the argument.
Deep into stoppage time, the substitute picked up the ball, drove at a retreating defence, and simply refused to be stopped. He beat one, then another, then a third defender before finishing with authority. A brilliant solo goal, the sort that silences a stadium and rescues a dressing room from an uncomfortable inquest.
It was Adeyemi’s third goal since arriving from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, another decisive contribution from a player who has wasted no time introducing himself to Spanish football. His impact has inevitably drawn comparisons with fellow new arrival Anthony Gordon, whose start has been quieter, at least in front of goal.
Flick, though, moved quickly to shield the English forward from any early scrutiny.
“Of course this is the situation at the moment with Anthony,” he said. “He gives us a lot, such as ball control with the ball and to keep possession. This is important. I am happy. As striker, you want to score. Hopefully it’s very soon that he scores, because it helps him also to arrive. But I am happy, I appreciate what he gives us.”
If the scoreline flattered Barcelona’s nerves more than their performance, Flick made no attempt to dress it up.
“It was not our best game,” he admitted. “We had a great start, but then in the second half we struggled a little bit. We have to be calmer at 3-0. Of course, to survive this game helps us to improve. We have situations we have to make better. We will tell this to the team and go on to the next match.”
His assessment cut to the core of the evening. Barcelona’s early-season run has looked almost effortless from the outside, but Flick was keen to stress the work behind it.
“It seems the games have been easy,” he said, “but it’s not that they have been easy, we have just played well.”
This one was anything but easy. It was a warning. A reminder that even a three-goal cushion can vanish if focus slips, that positioning, passing and the connections between players still need sharpening.
Barcelona left Valencia with three points, another win, and their perfect start intact. They also left with a clear message from their coach: survive nights like this, learn from them, and make sure the next 3-0 lead never feels this fragile again.
