Ronald Araujo stoppage time strike secures point for Barcelona in awful performance against Granada
Barcelona remain unbeaten to start the La Liga season but had a bad night at home against Granada that ended in a 1-1 draw thanks to a 90th minute equalizer by Ronald Araujo.
Barça were awful from start to finish and went into pretty ridiculous lengths to try and win the game, but had to settle for a point they didn’t really deserve.
The game started with a Granada goal, thanks to a cross by Escudero that found Domingos Duarte wide-open at the far post and the defender headed home the opener for the visitors just 88 seconds into the game.
Granada took advantage of the early goal and set up in a deep, compact defensive shape and invited Barça to try and break them down. But the Blaugrana were sterile in possession, passing the ball from side to side without any movement or creativity in the final third, and Barça were quite simply terrible for the entire first half.
Barça’s only real chances came in added time. Ronald Araujo had a header brilliantly saved by Maximiano, and the Granada keeper made another big stop on a shot by Sergiño Dest.
At halftime, Barça were deservedly losing thanks to a very bad performance and needed a lot of improvement to win it in the second half.
There was no improvement at all from Barça. Ronald Koeman brought Luuk De Jong off the bench and the Blaugrana turned into a crossing machine trying to find the Dutch striker with every chance they got, but Granada’s defense had no issues dealing with the aerial assault.
The game was hard to watch until the 75th minute, when Koeman brought Gerard Piqué on to partner De Jong up front as Barça went with a Twin Towers look to try and rescue an equalizer. Even more crosses were sent into the box, and Ronald Araujo decided to come from the back to try and help out.
Araujo was an absolute monster all night and deserved to score the equalizer, and that’s he did with a perfect run and a smart header in the 90th minute to rescue a point for Barça. The final whistle came, and a horrible performance somehow didn’t end up in a loss.
If Ronald Koeman wants to keep his job, this is not the way to do it.
Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Dest, García, Araujo, Balde (Mingueza 42’); Roberto (L. De Jong 46’), Busquets (Puig 74’), De Jong; Demir (Piqué 74’), Memphis, Coutinho (Gavi 60’)
Goal: Araujo (90’)
Granada: Maximiano; Quini, Duarte, Abram, Escudero (Neva 46’); Monchu, Milla, Eteki (Montoro 30’); Puertas (Gonalons 67’), Molina (Suárez 67’), Machís
Goal: Duarte (2’)
