Barcelona have emphatically ended their three-game winless streak in _La Liga_ and will remain top of the table for another week thanks to an impressive 5-1 win away to Mallorca at _Son Moix_ on Tuesday evening. Barça were the better team from start to finish against a Mallorca side that competed hard in the first 70 minutes of the game, but the floodgates finally opened at the end and Barça deservedly earned all three points on the road with their best team performance in more than a month.
**FIRST HALF**
Barça had to weather an early storm to start the contest as Mallorca came out with a lot of intensity and got into some dangerous positions in the opening minutes, but the _Blaugrana_ did a very good job of keeping their offside trap and not allowing any real chances to the home team.
The _Blaugrana_ slowly but surely established their superiority by dominating the ball, and took an early lead thanks to an awful mistake by the Mallorca defense that gifted Ferran Torres one of the easiest goals he’ll ever score. The Catalans were given a nice boost after the early goal and played even better, with Alejandro Balde and Raphinha combining well on the left wing and creating most of the danger on that side.
But the familiar lack of efficiency up front shown in recent matches came back to haunt the visitors as Barça missed chance after chance, with Ferran especially wasteful in front of goal and both Dani Olmo and Lamine Yamal unable to turn promising attacks into scoring opportunities thanks to some poor decision-making in the final third.
Mallorca kept trying to create one golden chance on the counter and kept being denied by Barça’s offside trap, but with two minutes to go in the half Pablo Maffeo was able to time his run just right and was given a free path into the box, where he gave Vedat Muriqi the easiest of tap-ins to score an unlikely equalizer against the run of play.
Raphinha then had a monster one-on-one chance just before halftime to put Barça in front again, but couldn’t find a way to beat the keeper and missed another giant opportunity for the away side. The halftime whistle came to end a period in which Barça dominated and should have been up by multiple goals, but the game was somehow all square and wide open going into the final 45 minutes.
**SECOND HALF**
Barça continued to play solid football to start the second half, and 10 minutes in found the all-important second goal: Johan Mojica brought down Yamal in the box, and Raphinha scored a great penalty to put the visitors back in front.
Mallorca responded well to going in behind again and launched another blitz in search of a second equalizer, but the _Blaugrana_’s offside trap continued to work brilliantly to deny the hosts plenty of would-be scoring chances.
The home team started to gain real momentum as they looked for another goal, but Barça delivered three knockout blows in a span of 10 minutes: first it was Yamal who delivered a spectacular assist for Raphinha’s second goal of the night, then Frenkie de Jong came off the bench to score his first of the season and assist another substitute in Pau Víctor, who joined the scoring party and made it 5-1 for the visitors.
Yamal, who was hungry to find the net himself in the dying seconds, missed a huge one-on-one at the death as Barça could have easily scored a sixth goal, but they had to settle for just the five when the final whistle came to give them all three points in very impressive fashion.
This was without a doubt Barça’s best performance as a team in over a month, dominating the game and looking very efficient up front in the second half. And to do it away at Mallorca, where pretty much every team in _La Liga_ struggles, is even more satisfying to watch.
Well done, boys!
**Mallorca**: Román; Maffeo (Morey 78’), Valjent, Raíllo, Mojica; Morlanes, Samu; Valery (Navarro 67’), Sánchez (Prats 78’), Darder (Rodríguez 67’); Muriqi (Larin 78’)
Goal: _Muriqi (43’)_
**Barcelona**: Peña; Kounde, Cubarsí, Iñigo, Balde; Casadó (Eric 82’), Pedri (Gavi 82’); Yamal, Olmo (De Jong 72’), Raphinha (Fermín 87’); Ferran (Víctor 72’)
Goals: _Ferran (12’), Raphinha (pen 56’, 74’), De Jong (79’), Víctor (84’)_