La Liga: Barcelona breezes past Getafe 4-0 to climb to second place

Raphinha, Joao Felix, Frenkie De Jong and Fermin Lopez scored to earn Barcelona a 4-0 win over visitors Getafe on Saturday which lifted Xavi Hernandez’s side to second in the LaLiga standings.

It was a much-needed win for last year’s champion which is enduring a difficult season and has been under pressure after coach Xavi announced he was stepping down as manager at the end of the campaign.

In a half-empty Olympic stadium, the hosts dominated from the start and opened the scoring through Raphinha in the 20th minute.

In a quick counter, the Brazilian winger beat the off-side trap to latch on to Jules Kounde’s long pass and blasted the ball past Getafe keeper David Soria.

Raphinha wasted two great chances in similar fashion and Luis Milla almost equalised in the 49th minute with a long-range strike that hit Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s right post.

Joao Felix extended Barca’s lead in the 53rd minute with a tap-in from a low cross by Andreas Christiansen from the right and De Jong struck from the edge of the box to score the third, following good work by Raphinha.

Substitute Lopez lashed in a rebound in added time to complete the rout for the champion which moved to second in the standings on 57 points, five behind leader Real Madrid and one ahead of third-placed Girona, both of whom have a game in hand.

Real hosts Sevilla on Sunday while Catalan upstarts Girona faces Rayo Vallecano as it look to bounce back from two consecutive losses to keep its surprise La Liga title ambitions alive.

“We played a very complete game both in defence and attack, I’m satisfied with the performance and the result, now we’ll wait to see what Girona and Real do…” Xavi told Movistar Plus.