Real Mallorca v Barcelona: La Liga – live!

Suarez nearly makes it five, but come on, have a heart. He can’t force the ball home from a tight angle on the left, and Mallorca are spared the indignity of shipping a fifth. Not that it matters. Barca go five clear at the top, at least for one night, while Mallorca stay in the relegation zone. But while Barca were deserved winners, and scored some lovely goals, the hosts didn’t play like a relegation side tonight, no matter what the scoreline tells you.

90 min +4: The four goals don’t flatter Barcelona. But Mallorca don’t deserve to lose by four. Does that make any sense whatsoever? It surely must.

Messi wanders across the face of the Mallorca box, in the insouciant George Best style, drops three defenders, and lashes a shot into the top right. Easy as that.

90 min +1: But in the first of five added minutes, Salibur curls a cross in from the right and finds Abdon, who heads wastefully wide from ten yards. He should have scored. Mallorca have been beaten fair and square by the better team … but they’ve had several chances to score, and will wonder how they’ve passed them all up.

90 min: Gamez goes on a power run down the middle. He should have a dig, why not, but there’s to be no spectacular end to a 60-yard run. He feeds Salibur on the right, and the move quickly peters out.

87 min: Lago Junior twists gracefully down the inside left, turns infield and curls a fine effort inches wide of the top-right corner.

86 min: Rodriguez clips Rakitic’s heel and is booked. He’ll miss the game at Villarreal on Tuesday. Meanwhile De Jong is replaced by Firpo.

82 min: Suarez should make it four, latching onto a loose ball and driving at an increasingly tired Mallorca defence. He glides infield from the left and blazes wildly over, just as we all expected a delicate chip.

80 min: Another lengthy pause for a VAR check. Was Alba offside? No. We play on.

A refreshed Messi dinks a ball down the inside-left channel to release Alba, who reaches the box, gives Reina the eyes towards the far corner, and threads it into the bottom left instead.

77 min: It’s the second cooling break of the evening.

76 min: The excellent Kubo drives down the left and wins a corner off Pique. Ter Stegen flaps it clear. Pozo sends it back, a first-time curler towards the bottom left. Just wide, and the keeper had it covered anyway. On another day, Mallorca could have plundered a goal or two.

75 min: Barca allow Mallorca to knock it around the middle of the park. The hosts go nowhere, and the clock ticks on.

73 min: Alba is booked for a cynical bodycheck on Pozo, who was racing down the right touchline, about to be sent into a lot of space by Baba. Shame, because that was a nice flowing move by the hosts, Kubo involved as he has been in most of Mallorca’s best moments.

71 min: A double change for Barcelona. Sergio Roberto is replaced at right back by Semedo, while Arthur comes on for Busquets in the midfield.

69 min: Corner for Mallorca, out on the left. Salva Sevilla sends it in with a lot of whip. Pique is forced to slash out for another corner. That one leads to head tennis in the six-yard box. Raillo waits to head home at the far post, but Rakitic gets in the road. A third corner, which leads to nowt. It’s not as though Mallorca have been without chances this evening.

67 min: But Mallorca aren’t out of this quite yet. Lago Junior sashays down the left and gets the better of Pique. But his cross-cum-shot doesn’t reach Budimir, six yards out, and Barca hack clear.

66 min: Messi opens up Mallorca with a pass down the left channel. Suarez cuts back from the byline, but can’t tee up Messi or Braithwaite. Rakitic tries to revive the move, and Messi ends it with a wild slice from a tight angle. After a fallow period, Barca are now pressing for the third that will put an end to this once and for all.

64 min: Barca ping it about for a bit. Now it’s Mallorca’s turn to misplace their mojo.

62 min: Fran Gamez and Sergio Roberto clank together in an aerial challenge. The Barca man comes off the worst. He’s only winded, though, and up again soon enough.

60 min: Messi plays a cute ball around the corner to find Braithwaite on the penalty spot. Braithwate shakes off Pozo and flicks towards the bottom left. Reina brilliantly deflects wide of goal. From the resulting corner, Messi fires across the face of goal from the left. Suarez can’t flick home, and coming in from the right, the full debutant Araujo scuffs a shot onto the base of the post and away!

58 min: And so they make another change, replacing Griezmann with Suarez. Mallorca meanwhile replace Pedraza with Baba.

56 min: A couple of corners are wasted by Mallorca. Then Kubo is sent racing down the right, but his cross can’t find Budimir in the middle. Barca haven’t found their rhythm at all since the restart.

54 min: A pause as some buffoon runs onto the pitch. This is quite the scene seeing there’s no crowd. The prissy policy of not televising this sort of carry-on means we’re light on details, but all the players seem to find it amusing enough. In the distance, someone’s carted off down the tunnel.

52 min: Busquets tries to send Alba clear down the left. He’d have achieved his aim, too, had the ref not clumsily got in the way. The whistle goes for a drop ball. Busquets has the good grace to find the situation amusing. Many wouldn’t.

51 min: Barca take the second-half sting out of the game by stroking it around the back awhile. Clever game management.

49 min: Barca are still in the dressing room. Lago Junior lifts a ball into the mixer and Pique is forced to clang a header out for a corner. From the set piece, Rodriguez whips in from the left, but with Budimir lurking, Pique sends a header the other way up the pitch. This is a fine start to the second period by the hosts.

48 min: Close again! Kubo dribbles down the right and shifts the ball inside for Rodriguez, who drives further. He plays a pass across the face of the Barca box for Budimir, who unleashes a shot of great fury towards the bottom left. It’s beaten Ter Stegen, but flies an inch or two wide of the post.

47 min: A lot of space for Rodriguez in the middle of the park. He screams for the pass that would set him free on goal. Kubo tries to oblige, but overcooks it and the ball races through to Ter Stegen. So close to the goal the hosts require to change the complexion of this match.

Mallorca get the second half underway. A reminder that both teams can make up to five substitutions, and probably will, so a fair chunk of the rest of this MBM will be taken up by admin. Hey, I don’t make the rules. On this subject: Mallorca have made two half-time changes, replacing left-back Sastre with Fran Gamez, and sending on left-winger Lago Junior in place of Hernandez. Barcelona meanwhile have replaced the opening goalscorer Vidal with Rakitic.

Half-time entertainment. This is a marvellous, bittersweet tale, wonderfully told. Please don’t miss out on it.

Barca have been the better side … but Mallorca have had their moments. The champions should open up a five-point lead over Real Madrid from this position, but if Mallorca get the next goal, we might have a game on our hands. We beg you: go nowhere!

45 min +4: Messi nearly gets on the end of a one-two with De Jong. Had he taken down the return pass, sent along the inside-right channel, he’d have been one on one with Reina and Barca would likely be three goals to the good now. So close to putting this game to bed.

45 min +2: Messi dribbles hard down the inside-right channel and makes it into the box. A thrust of elegant danger. But just as he’s shaping to shoot, Raillo slides in to take the ball off his toe. That is a quite spectacular intervention by the centre-back, perfectly timed and executed.

45 min +1: In the first of four extra minutes, Kubo crosses from the right. Budimir, who has two goals against Barca to his name already this season, flashes a header wide left. He should have worked Ter Stegen for sure; he probably should have scored, if we’re being honest with ourselves.

45 min: Messi drives at a furiously backpedalling Mallorca defence. He lays off to Alba on his left. Alba clanks a heavy touch, perhaps intended as a first-time pass to Griezmann, straight into touch. Goal kick.

43 min: Vidal goes in the book after standing on Rodriguez’s foot. He doesn’t bother complaining. Anyway, what do you reckon about this virtual audience? Charles Antaki’s report is in. “The CGI crowd is unobjectionable enough. Might be more engaging if they included people wandering up and down the steps, some balancing drinks in both hands, others looking for their seats etc.” It’d be quite nice if one bellicose sprite was clearly paying no attention whatsoever to the match, instead flicking Vs at the little computer people in the adjacent block. Get on it, boffins.

41 min: Messi was possibly trying to set himself up in the build-up to that goal, nudging his header into space. But Braithwaite wasn’t hanging about, and we’ll never know for sure.

39 min: There’s a long VAR check, as there’s a suggestion the ball had grazed Griezmann’s arm during the penalty-box bounce-a-round. But there’s nothing in it. The referee whistles to restart the game, and the champs are two up.