(Football news) Barcelona had a devastating past week where they were knocked out of the Europa League by Eintracht Frankfurt and defeated at home by Cadiz for the first time ever. They recovered well with a 1-0 win away at Real Sociedad. Gerard Pique recovered from his injury and was straight away called back into the starting XI which Xavi was later left to regret.

Barcelona started the game on the front foot and took the lead after just 11 minutes. Ousmane Dembele hit the crossbar after which Ferran Torres setup Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for the opening goal. La Real started to gradually become more of an attacking threat. Alexander Isak had a very good chance to equalize just before half time but couldn't hit the target. After the restart Alexander Sorloth had a chance to score but once again hit it off target. Marc Andre Ter Stegan pulled off a couple of decent saves to keep it 1-0. La Real had the better chances in the 2nd but couldn't convert them.

Xavi was forced to take off Gerard Pique, Dani Alves and Ronald Araujo due to injuries. If any of these injuries are serious then Barcelona are in big trouble. The match was just a job done which doesn't help Barcelona much. It would take a miracle for Barcelona to catch Real Madrid in the league at this point. Xavi has nothing apart from top 4 to concentrate on. He could use this time to test out a few players to plan ahead for next season. The loss massively dented Real Sociedad's chances of making it to the top 4. 

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