{"id":218584,"date":"2025-12-16T22:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T22:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/christensen-and-rashford-secure-a-hard-fought-victory-for-barcelona\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T22:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T22:52:07","slug":"christensen-and-rashford-secure-a-hard-fought-victory-for-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/christensen-and-rashford-secure-a-hard-fought-victory-for-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"Christensen and Rashford secure a hard-fought victory for Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ue-c-article--first-letter-highlighted\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marca.com\/en\/soccer\/spanish-copa-del-rey\/deportivo-guadalajara-barcelona\/2025\/12\/16\/01_0105_20251216_5725_178-live.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barcelona <\/a><\/strong>needed late goals by<strong> Andreas Christensen<\/strong> and <strong>Marcus Rashford<\/strong> to defeat third-division club Guadalajara 2-0 on Tuesday in the round of 32 of the Copa del Rey in a game delayed because of problems with the stadium&#8217;s temporary grandstand.<\/p>\n<p>Kickoff was delayed by half an hour because local authorities did not initially allow fans access to the newly built grandstand at the Pedro Escartn stadium in the city of Guadalajara near Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>There were long lines outside the stadium until police finally permitted fans inside. The stadium&#8217;s capacity increased from nearly 6,000 to <strong>about 8,000 with the new stand<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona was in <strong>control <\/strong>from the start but struggled to create significant scoring chances against its lower-tier opponent.<\/p>\n<p>Christensen finally <strong>broke the deadlock in the 76th <\/strong>minute with a header off a cross by Frenkie De Jong. Christensen&#8217;s header deflected off a defender before hitting the net.<\/p>\n<p>The hosts had a few opportunities to equalize but couldn&#8217;t capitalize, and<strong> Rashford sealed the victory on a breakaway in the 90th<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona coach Hansi Flick rested some of the team&#8217;s regular starters ahead of Spanish league leader&#8217;s visit to third-place <strong>Villarreal <\/strong>on Sunday.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"ue-c-article__subheadline\">Other results<\/h2>\n<p>In the upset of the night, second-division <strong>Deportivo La Coruna<\/strong> eliminated top-flight <strong>Mallorca <\/strong>1-0.<\/p>\n<p>The other first-division clubs advanced. <strong>Real Sociedad<\/strong> defeated <strong>Eldense <\/strong>2-1 with a winner deep into stoppage time, while <strong>Valencia <\/strong>beat <strong>Sporting Gijon<\/strong> 2-0.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, <strong>Real Madrid<\/strong> visits third-division club Talavera, while<strong> Atletico Madrid<\/strong> is at fourth-tier team Atletico Baleares.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marca.com\/en\/football\/barcelona\/2025\/12\/16\/6941e27d46163fc5248b45b8.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona needed late goals by Andreas Christensen and Marcus Rashford to defeat third-division club Guadalajara 2-0 on Tuesday in the round of 32 of the Copa del Rey in a game delayed because of problems with the stadium&#8217;s temporary grandstand. Kickoff was delayed by half an hour because local authorities did not initially allow fans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6808],"tags":[547,971,6916,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-218584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-barcelona-english","10":"tag-copa-del-rey-english","11":"tag-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}