Barcelona's Record Bid Falls in Vitoria as Alaves Seize Lifeline

Newly-crowned champions, but beaten like any other side fighting fatigue and distraction. Barcelona’s pursuit of La Liga’s mythical 100-point mark ended with a dull thud in Vitoria, a 1-0 defeat to an Alaves team playing for something far more basic: survival.

Hansi Flick’s men needed three wins from three to join the centurion club. They stumbled at the first step.

Diabate strikes, Alaves rise

The champions arrived with the glow of Sunday’s Clasico win still fresh and Monday’s open-top bus parade still in their legs. They saw plenty of the ball, moved it with their usual composure, and had Marcus Rashford buzzing on the flank. But this was Alaves in desperation mode, and they refused to be overawed.

The game’s single decisive moment came right on the stroke of half-time. A corner swung in, Antonio Blanco rose and nodded it back into the danger area. Barcelona’s defenders hesitated for a fatal heartbeat. Ibrahim Diabate didn’t. He pounced and drove the ball past Wojciech Szczesny in first-half stoppage time, a ruthless finish that sent Mendizorrotza into uproar and Barcelona’s points dream into the dust.

Flick had rotated heavily after sealing back-to-back titles at the weekend, handing 21-year-old centre-back Alvaro Cortes his debut among several changes. The German coach framed the night as a chance to blood youth and manage minutes. The performance, though, looked every inch like a side that had already scaled its mountain.

Alaves, by contrast, played as if the season hinged on every duel. Because it does. Diabate almost struck again just after the interval, Szczesny forced into a sharp save as Quique Sanchez Flores’s team went hunting for a second.

Barcelona kept the ball, but rarely the initiative. The champions struggled to carve out clean chances, their possession blunted on the edge of a disciplined Alaves block. When Jon Guridi burst through and drove a shot across Szczesny, it beat the goalkeeper but not the post, a reminder that the hosts were far from clinging on.

The whistle finally came as a release for the home crowd. Diabate’s goal not only secured a statement win over the champions, it dragged Alaves out of the relegation zone and up to 15th. On a night when Barcelona’s grand statistical ambition died, Alaves’ fight to simply stay in La Liga took on new life.

Sevilla turn crisis into a comeback

Earlier in the evening, another club more used to European nights than relegation talk clawed its way upward with a performance full of defiance. Sevilla, mired near the bottom for months, went two goals down away to high-flying Villarreal – and then ripped the script to shreds.

Inside 20 minutes, it looked like a routine home win. Gerard Moreno and Georges Mikautadze fired Villarreal, sitting third, into a 2-0 lead. The Andalusians seemed on course for another bruising reminder of their fall from grace.

Then came the response.

Oso struck first to drag Sevilla back into the contest, and Kike Salas added the equaliser before half-time, turning a looming rout into a live fight. The momentum swung, the anxiety shifted to the home stands, and Sevilla smelled vulnerability.

The winner arrived in the 72nd minute. Akor Adams, seizing his moment, completed a stunning turnaround to make it 3-2 and deliver Sevilla a third consecutive league victory. From crisis to breathing space in three games, they climbed provisionally to 10th, four points clear of the drop.

All this in a week when the club’s future off the pitch has also been in the headlines, with reports that former defender Sergio Ramos is close to fronting a takeover alongside an investment firm. On the field, at least, Sevilla suddenly look like a team intent on ensuring any new era begins in the top flight, not in the rubble of relegation.

Espanyol end the nightmare

If Sevilla’s revival felt dramatic, Espanyol’s win carried the weight of sheer relief. Eighteen league games without victory had dragged the Catalan side towards the abyss and pushed their coach Manolo Gonzalez to the edge, professionally and personally.

Against Athletic Bilbao, something finally broke in their favour.

After another tense, nervous first half, Pere Milla stepped up after the break to give Espanyol the lead at home. When Kike Garcia struck late on to make it 2-0, the result was sealed and so, in many ways, was a psychological turning point.

Gonzalez, who called the barren run “one of the worst experiences” of his professional and personal life, had tears in his eyes at the final whistle. The table offers only a modest reward – Espanyol sit 14th, three points clear of the bottom three – but the emotional shift could prove far more valuable than the numbers.

There is no time to bask. “Now we have to go to Pamplona and win,” the coach insisted, already looking to Osasuna away on Sunday. Safe football is not on the agenda; momentum is the new obsession.

Mallorca sink as Getafe eye Europe

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, Mallorca’s problems deepened. Sitting 17th, they travelled to Getafe and left with a 3-1 defeat that keeps them tangled in the relegation fight.

For Getafe, now seventh, the victory does more than pad the points column. It strengthens their push for a place in the Conference League, turning what might have been a solid season into something more ambitious.

So the night ended with champions beaten, strugglers reborn, and Europe-chasing hopefuls edging closer to their own target. Barcelona’s chase for 100 points is gone. For everyone else clawing for survival or dreaming of Europe, the real numbers that matter are still very much in play.