Mallorca’s players react at the end of the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Mallorca and Barcelona at the Son Moix stadium in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on September 26, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP
Barcelona twice fought back to secure a 2-2 draw at Mallorca on Tuesday, maintaining their unbeaten start to the LaLiga season.
Barca moved up to 17 points, but could be overtaken as LaLiga leaders on Wednesday by Girona, who are one point adrift and visit Villarreal, and Real Madrid, who have 15 points and host Las Palmas.
“The game got stuck from the start. We’ve had two games with a bit of a bad feeling and we need to improve. We are giving too many chances,” Barcelona midfielder Oriol Romeu told DAZN.
“The fact that they are counter-attacking so easily makes us run a lot of metres. We need to improve on this.”
The hosts’ early pressure paid off as they took the lead after eight minutes when Vedat Muriqi capitalised on a poor clearance from Barca’s keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Raphinha grabbed an equaliser with a powerful shot into the bottom left corner in the 41st minute, only to see Abdon Prats restore Mallorca’s lead in stoppage time with a simple finish after keeper Predrag Rajkovic’s superb long clearance and a Muriqi header.
Mallorca took their foot off the gas in the second half and Barca substitute Fermin Lopez tapped home Raphinha’s low cross from the right to make it 2-2 in the 75th minute.
“The problem was our defensive errors, these are improper mistakes that shouldn’t happen, especially in this type of tight, intense match,” Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez said.
“We conceded too much. I think we had the game under control after the equaliser, we had a chance to make it 2-1 several times. We didn’t win today because of our mistakes.”
Barcelona host Sevilla on Friday, before travelling to Porto for their second Champions League group stage match.
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