Football Barcelona vs Valencia

Rafinha's header reduced Valencia to 10-man Barcelona Rafinha's first-half header was enough to secure a narrow victory over Valencia on Sunday despite La Liga leaders Barcelona being reduced to 10 men for the last half-hour.

Barca, recovering from a disappointing loss at lowly Almeria last weekend, earned three hard-fought points despite looking like a poor side for long stretches at Camp Nou.

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They top La Liga with 62 points, nine ahead of second-placed Real Madrid who drew 0-0 with Betis later on Sunday. Valencia, who have won just one of their last 10 league matches, is second with 23 points.

The locals started strongly, led by Rafinha before midfielder Sergio Busquets headed past the keeper after a superb long pass in the 15th minute.

Rafinha and Ansu Fati had chances to extend Barca's lead but Valencia recovered from an early shock to dominate proceedings and Thierry Correa, Samuel Lino, and Ilaix Moriba could have equalized.

Valencia came back in control after the half-time break but a handball from Hugo Guillamón inside the box gave Barcelona a golden chance to extend their lead in 55 minutes. The penalty was wasted when Ferran Torres shot wide.

Five minutes later, however, they lost defender Ronald Araujo to a straight red card for a last-man foul on Hugo Duro and Barcelona struggled to hold on to their lead for the final 30 minutes.

Fran Perez, Jesus Vazquez, and Yunus Musa had clear chances to equalize and the Valencia players protested in vain for Frank Casey's flagrant foul on Perez inside the penalty area in the 85th minute.

"We suffered a lot today," Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez told Movistar Plus. “We defended well [after the red card] but we should have scored the second goal before that.

"We've had close games like this and we didn't do that today because of a lack of effectiveness which meant we suffered towards the end. It's a growing experience.