Sevilla won their first home LaLiga game of the season with a 4-1 victory that ended Barcelona’s 15-game unbeaten run away.
In-form Barcelona were quickly into their stride at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, but it was Sevilla that went closest to scoring in the opening exchanges through Barca old boy, Alexis Sanchez.
The game plan from the hosts appeared to centre on putting Jules Kounde under consistent pressure, with Ruben Vargas’ solid work in this respect curtailing the Frenchman’s forays upfield.
The hosts were then awarded an early penalty after Ronald Araujo was controversially adjudged to have strong-armed Isaac Romero, Sanchez wasting no time in accepting the responsibility and sending Wojciech Szczesny the wrong way to put Sevilla one up.
Unusually for the Catalans there wasn’t much in the way of an immediate response, with only Pedri and Marcus Rashford emerging with any credit.
In fact, the Andalusians looked much more likely to add to their tally. Jose Angel Carmona went close, Romero’s daisy cutter drifted agonisingly wide and then Szczesny pulled off two magnificent saves from Romero and Batista Mendy before Kounde lost the ball, Sevilla broke and Romero fired home a second at the far post.
Rashford missed a glorious opportunity when one-on-one with Sevilla goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos, but in first-half injury time, the Man Utd loanee smashed a left-foot volley into the roof of the net to give Barca hope.
The visitors came out on the front foot after the break with subs Alejandro Balde and Eric Garcia injecting some purpose into their attacks.
Aside from the odd set-piece, Sevilla’s threat had faded significantly by the hour mark, and the hosts were indebted to Vlachodimos for keeping them ahead thanks to two great saves from Pedri and Rashford.
Consistent pressure kept the Andalusians at bay, and with a minute of coming on, Sevilla sub Adnan Januzaj gave away a penalty after upending Balde. Against a backdrop of a cacophony of boos and whistles, Robert Lewandowski stepped up but put his penalty wide of Vlachodimos’ right-hand post.
A terrible miss from Roony Bardghji saw another Barcelona chance go begging and that saw the pendulum move back in favour of the hosts.
Akor Adams thought he’d put the game to bed on 87’ but the offside flag saved the visitors on this occasion.
Sevilla didn’t have to wait long to celebrate, however, as a swift break saw Carmona arrow a fine strike past Szczesny.
Adams put the cherry on top of the cake with a fourth in injury-time for Sevilla’s first win over Barcelona in LaLiga since October 2015 (D4, L15), and is the first loss for the Catalans in their last 10 league trips to Seville (W6, D3).
Flashscore Man of the Match: Odysseas Vlachodimos (Sevilla)