Excellent three minutes from Barcelona! Fermin and Cancelo significantly increased their promotion chances against Napoli with two goals

The return leg of the 8-final between Barcelona and Napoli was a very attractive football match, and we got it. The home side went for the promotion after the opening draw and within three minutes it was defacto decided who would reach the quarter-finals.

The opening game in Naples ended in a 1-1 draw, but in the rematch the favourite was the team from Barcelona, whose start to 2024 did not go as expected. In January, it first fell in a derby with Real Madrid with a high score of 1:4, then fell out of the Copa del Rey with Bilbao and a few days later was beaten by Villarreal at home by five goals.

Napoli won the league title and the golden days seemed to be back. But that was a big mistake and the team around striker Victor Osimhen was losing point after point. So Napoli recalled coach Walter Mazzarri and replaced him with Francesco Calzona.

Both teams are unlikely to win the league title this season and the Champions League is a huge motivation for them. It was clear from the first minutes that we were in for an interesting game full of attacking action and not a tactical battle with a solid defence.

A fantastic three minutes in Barcelona

Barcelona pushed for a goal and got their first in the 15th minute when Raphinha found a free Fermin Lopez and he headed accurately. Napoli couldn’t recover from his shot and the goalkeeper pulled the ball out of the net for a second time.

Two minutes after Fermin’s goal, it was Raphinha again who broke away from the defence and this time tried to fire himself. His shot was good, he had already beaten the goalkeeper, but the ball only ended up on the bar. Fortunately for Barca, it bounced to a free Joao Cancel.

He dealt with the opportunity and got the ball into the net before the defenders could react. Thanks to their strikes, Barcelona came much closer to progressing as they only needed to miss twice.

Napoli didn’t give up after that, they still had plenty of time. After half an hour of play, a reduction came from her side when Amir Rrahmani got to the ball and managed to get the ball behind Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

Source: UEFA Champions League