Lamine Yamal scored one and provided two assists to lead Barcelona to a comfortable 4-1 win over Espanyol in the Catalan derby on Saturday.
The Spanish La Liga derby was influenced by the winger’s tricky with two goals, and he got a deserved goal on his 100th match for the club. The wonderkid is the club’s youngest player to reach 100 appearances at the age of 18 years and 272 days.
Ferran Torres scored a first half brace before Yamal and Marcus Rashford added late goals to render Pol Lozano’s earlier strike a consolation.
Barcelona knew a win would mean the Blaugrana capitalized on Real Madrid dropping points on Friday night, and Torres put them ahead with a header from Yamal’s corner kick on nine minutes. The former Manchester City forward doubled the lead on 25 minutes with a well placed finish from Yamal’s rabona assist.
The momentum shifted to Espanyol when Lozano reduced the deficit with a well struck shot, but Yamal calmed fray nerves when he slotted into an empty net on 87 minutes before Rashford wrapped up the goals with the fourth two minutes later.
Barcelona have 79 points from 31 matches and extended their lead at the top over second-placed Real Madrid to nine points with seven matches to the end of the season to successfully defend their league title.