Racing Santander 0-2 Barcelona: Torres and Yamal score to stave off Copa del Rey upset

Barcelona reached the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey with a nervy 2-0 victory over second-tier Racing Santander on Thursday.

Perhaps wary of an upset after seeing Real Madrid dumped out by minnows Albacete 24 hours earlier, Hansi Flick named a strong lineup for this meeting between the leaders of Spanish football’s top two tiers.

Lamine Yamal, Marcus Rashford and Ferran Torres led the line for the visitors, though it was Racing that carved out the first opening as Joan Garcia had to tip Aritz Aldasoro’s deflected delivery over his crossbar.

Dani Olmo was inches away from turning Rashford’s centre home, while Giorgi Guliashvili’s shot was too tame when Racing launched a rapid counter-attack from a Barca corner.

The visitors finally went ahead in the 66th minute, with Torres keeping his cool to round Jokin Ezkieta and tap home after being threaded through by substitute Fermin Lopez.

Ezkieta then made an excellent double save to keep out Lopez and Robert Lewandowski, with Flick introducing several more big names from the bench, though Racing had several big opportunities to force extra time.

Manex Lozano had the ball in the net twice but was denied by the offside flag on both occasions, with the first a near-post finish on the counter and the second being a slightly more marginal call when he tapped Andres Martin’s cross home.

Lozano finally timed his run to perfection in the fourth minute of stoppage time but blasted straight at Garcia, and Racing were swiftly punished at the other end as Yamal tapped into an unguarded net to secure their passage to the last eight.

Data Debrief: Barca forced to dig deep

When their arch-rivals Madrid slid to a humiliating defeat on Wednesday, Barca’s hopes of both defending the Copa and completing another sweep of Spain’s domestic trophies got a major boost.

The Blaugrana fired off 17 shots to Racing’s six and won the expected goals (xG) battle by 2.23 to 0.91, but those figures may not tell the full story of this tie, with Garcia called upon to make three big saves.

His heroics – particularly his denial of Lozano at 1-0 deep into stoppage time – helped Barca keep a sixth straight clean sheet in head-to-head meetings with Racing. This is their second-best such run against them, having shut them out seven times in a row from 1984 to 1989.

It was perhaps fitting that Yamal got the clinching goal in the 95th minute, given he created at least three times as many chances as any other player on the pitch (six, ahead of Jules Kounde with two).