A vibrant encounter sees the home side take the lead but Ferran Torres pulls level and Memphis wins it from the penalty spot
Barcelona have collected three points from a high tension encounter in Elche. The home side put up a strong fight and led at half-time, meaning Xavi Hernández’s side needed to pull out all the stops to battle back from behind and ultimately seal a win that means they move up to third in the table, pending the outcome of the game between Betis and Atlético Madrid later in the day
Challenging encounter
Xavi had warned before the game that this was not going to a walk in the park. Elche have improved a lot under Francisco, especially at home, where they were unbeaten under their new coach and were intent on keeping that record alive.
Barça were still creating most of the opportunities and a very plugged in Ousmane Dembélé was involved in the creation of most of those.
Frenkie de Jong had the best two chances to get Barça into the lead. In the first he looked certain score when a rebound fell perfectly into his path, but the ball was cleared off the line and in a one-on-one against Edgar Badia it was the Elche keeper who had the upper hand.
But the Catalans looked lot less comfortable than they have done in other recent games. Elche were very much in the mix and while Tete Morente probably should have done better with one chance, Fidel Chaves took his own to put the home side ahead moments before half-time.
Pedri had misjudged his pass back into defence and instead put Fidel through on goal and after five consecutive clean sheets at the Estadio Martínez Valero, Barça found themselves trailing at the break.
