BARCELONA, Spain: Ferran Torres scored a hat trick, Lamine Yamal converted a penalty and Roony Bardghji shone in a rare start as Barcelona roared back to win at Real Betis 5-3 in La Liga on Saturday.
Barcelona’s rout of fifth-placed Betis in Seville increased its lead to four points over Real Madrid before it hosts Celta Vigo on Sunday.
Torres has grown from a bench player to become Hansi Flick’s most used striker. The Spain forward has more starts than Robert Lewandowski, who at 37 is seeing his playing time reduced.
Torres leads Barcelona in scoring with 13 goals across all competitions. He has 11 in La Liga through 15 rounds, surpassing his 10 in the league all of last season. Only Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé with 16 has more in this campaign.
“I already knew that I could be a starter here in Barcelona and fight for this spot,” Torres said. “Now we have to go for more. The most important thing was our ability to respond to their early goal.”
It was a fourth career hat trick for Torres, who also bagged three goals at Betis in a 4-2 win last year.
Bardghji impressed in his third start since the 20-year-old Sweden winger joined Barcelona from Copenhagen in the summer. His dribbling was electric, and he provided a cross for Torres to score the go-ahead goal before he made it 3-1 with a powerful strike from just inside the area.
Lewandowski and Raphinha never left the bench for Barcelona. That leaves them rested for when Eintracht Frankfurt arrive on Tuesday in the Champions League.
Yamal on the inside
The game featured a tactical novelty for Barcelona: Yamal spent most of the match playing in an interior, creative midfield role rather than on the right wing.
Yamal remained in sync with his teammates, participating in the passing move that led to Torres’ first goal. He converted the penalty in the 59th for Barcelona’s fifth after a shot by Marcus Rashford hit the raised arm of Marc Bartra.
Flick said he asked Yamal if he was ready to play at the “10 spot” and Yamal agreed. Above all, his coach praised Yamal’s work in defense.
“He played a fantastic game and it gives us one or two more options,” Flick said.
Betis eased the pain with late goals by Diego Llorente and Cucho Hernández’s penalty after Koundé fouled Abde in the box.
Manuel Pellegrini’s Betis was flying high coming into the game having beaten fierce city rival Sevilla in the previous round and was unbeaten in eight games overall. Betis will be overtaken by Espanyol on Sunday if it gets a draw with Rayo Vallecano.
Fermín López returned as a second-half substitute after the Barcelona midfielder missed two games with a leg injury.
Villarreal right behind
Tajon Buchanan and Georges Mikautadze scored to help Villarreal beat Getafe 2-0 and stay in third place, one point behind Madrid.
Athletic Bilbao beat fourth-placed Atletico Madrid 1-0 before the Basque club faces Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Alex Berenguer scored from a pass by Nico Williams with five minutes remaining.
Alaves upset Real Sociedad 1-0 in a regional derby.
Torres hat trick in Barcelona rout of Betis in La Liga
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Torres hat trick in Barcelona rout of Betis in La Liga
- Barcelona’s rout of fifth-placed Betis in Seville increased its lead to four points over Real Madrid before it hosts Celta Vigo on Sunday
Vonn crashes out of Winter Olympics in brutal end to medal dream
- The 41-year-old was just 13 seconds into her run when she lost control
- Skiing legend was aiming to win another medal despite competing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy: Lindsey Vonn crashed out of the Winter Olympics downhill on Sunday, brutally ending the American skiing great’s improbable dream of winning a medal despite competing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament.
Vonn was just 13 seconds into her run in bright sunshine in Cortina d’Ampezzo when she lost control, twisted in the air and crumpled in the snow.
The 41-year-old’s cries of pain could be heard on the microphones as medical staff attended to the stricken skier on the piste.
Thousands of spectators at the bottom of the run fell silent as they watched the images of the crash on giant screens.
Vonn was eventually strapped into a stretcher and winched into the air by helicopter to be flown to hospital.
Her US teammate Breezy Johnson went on to win the gold medal, but her first thoughts were for Vonn, saying: “My heart goes out to her. I hope it’s not as bad as it looked.”
Johnson finished in front of Germany’s Emma Aicher by just 0.04sec with Italy’s Sofia Goggia taking bronze in front of her home fans.
Vonn’s sister Karin Kildow, who watched the crash on giant screens at the course, said: “That definitely was the last thing we wanted to see.”
Hopes dashed
Just two weeks ago, Vonn, one of global sport’s most recognizable faces, looked in contention to cap a remarkable comeback from retirement by winning the second Olympic gold medal of her career — her last came 16 years ago in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
She had retired in 2019 but returned to the slopes in 2024 after surgery to insert a titanium implant in her right knee to quell persistent pain.
But her Olympic plans were thrown into disarray when she crashed in a World Cup race at Crans Montana, Switzerland, on January 30.
In a press conference once she arrived in Italy, she admitted she had ruptured her ACL in the crash, but insisted she could still compete for medals.
“This is not obviously what I had hoped for.... I know what my chances were before the crash and and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today,” she said then.
“But I know there’s still a chance, and as long as there’s a chance I will try.”
She even batted aside those who doubted her ability to perform with such an injury, taking to social media to fire back at a sports doctor for doubting her ACL tear was as bad as she claimed.
In other action on Sunday, the second full day of the Milan-Cortina Games, Czech snowboarder Zuzana Maderova won gold in the women’s parallel giant slalom after the shock exit of defending champion Ester Ledecka.
Ledecka crashed out in the quarter-finals as the Czech chased what would have been a historic snowboarding title in three consecutive Olympics.
Maderova enjoyed a comfortable victory over Ledecka’s conqueror Sabine Payer, cruising to victory by 0.83sec.
In Tesero, Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Klaebo racked up the sixth Olympic gold medal of his career by taking the skiathlon title.
Later, attention will switch the ice rink as the USA go into the final day of the figure skating team event seeking to resist a stiff challenge from Japan.
Ilia Malinin, the US sensation who was upstaged on his Olympic debut on Saturday by Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, skates again on Sunday in the free program.
