Barcelona escaped the Martinez Valero with a hard-fought 2-1 victory, keeping their grip on the top-four race despite a disjointed performance for much of the evening.
The match lacked the fluid rhythm Xavi Hernandez usually demands. For 60 minutes, Barcelona looked sluggish, struggling to break down a compact Elche side that seemed content to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. The deadlock broke in the 44th minute when Fidel Chaves capitalized on a defensive lapse, sliding the ball past Marc-Andre ter Stegen to put the hosts in front.
The mood in the away dressing room at halftime was clear. Xavi’s side emerged with a different intensity, but they still lacked a clinical edge until Ferran Torres entered the fray.
Torres, who had missed a flurry of chances earlier, finally found the net on the hour mark. He turned home a loose ball from close range, shifting the momentum of the game entirely. The goal forced Elche to abandon their defensive shell, opening up gaps that Barcelona began to exploit with increasing frequency.
The decisive moment arrived in the 84th minute. A VAR review confirmed a handball by Antonio Barragán inside the box, handing Barcelona a penalty. Memphis Depay stepped up, burying his strike into the top corner to seal the comeback.
For Elche, the defeat stings. They defended with discipline for long stretches, but a single lapse in concentration against elite opposition proved costly. Manager Francisco will be left wondering what might have been had his side pushed for a second goal while they held the lead.
Barcelona moves up to third in the table with this result, at least for the night. They aren’t playing the kind of football that will worry Europe’s elite just yet, but they are finding ways to win games that would have slipped away earlier in the season.
“We made it difficult for ourselves,” Xavi told reporters after the whistle. He wasn’t smiling. For a club in transition, three points are the only currency that matters — and tonight, Barcelona barely scraped enough together to stay relevant in the title conversation.
