Game Recap: Barcelona B 3-5 UD Las Palmas

Well, let me start off by saying that it's been a while since we did an update on Mini Estadi's main tenants and we are a little rusty. In a nutshell, what we've basically missed out on is that Barca B has had a wonderful season in the Segunda (or Liga Adelante, whatever) under Luis Enrique that he has become a candidate to be the next manager at Atletico Madrid (good luck with that, heh). Entering this weekend's round of matches, Barca B was tied for fifth as they hosted Las Palmas, who were dangling dangerously within the last relegation spot.

Barcelona B were short of their best players at the start, thanks to the senior team choosing to rest their stars and therefore relying on fringe players and B team members (Fontas, Bartra, Jonathan, Thiago and Oriol Romeu). Despite that (or maybe because of it), the game turned into an entertaining, wide-open game. Las Palmas carved out the first chance via Sergio Suarez who saw his header flash wide in the 8th minute. Three minutes later though, it was the home side who took the lead thanks to Marc Muniesa, who turned the ball in after some confusion in the penalty area. The visitors equalised against the run of play through a header from Ruyman eleven minutes later. Yet again though, three minutes later Barca were back ahead thanks to an awful Las Palmas defense forgetting to mark Segunda top scorer Jonathan Soriano. In the 33rd minute, winger Edu Oriol carved open the visitors and teed the ball up for Tello who made no mistake and planted it in the bottom right corner. 3-1, it should be over right?

In a word, no. Five minutes before the break, a penalty was awarded to Las Palmas, and the sensational Jonathan Viera (well, he was on this night) cut the deficit in half. It got worse for Barca when at the stroke of halftime, their depleted defense let them down and Sergio Suarez was able to capitalize for the gut-wrenching equalizer. From there, it was all downhill. The excellent Viera scored his second goal just after the restart and completed his hat trick ten minutes later, thanks to some neat work by Javi Guerrero. The B team pushed forward, had their chances, threw on Nolito, even had a goal disallowed (Soriano again), but with some excellent work by the Las Palmas keeper and a little luck, the visitors took the much-needed three points. For Barcelona B, it was a lesson learned for the youngsters.

Las Palmas moves a little close to safety, and Barcelona B drops to 6th.

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