Barcelona left it late as they defeated rivals Real Madrid 2-1 in the latest edition of El Clasico on Sunday.
Barca came into the match with a nine-point cushion atop the La Liga standings, with Madrid occupying second place. A victory for the visitors would've closed the gap somewhat, but instead the Catalans have one hand on the league title after a convincing win at the Camp Nou.
It was actually Madrid who scored first as they were the beneficiaries of a bizarre own-goal by Ronald Araujo. The Barca defender inadvertantly nodded the ball into his own net at the nine-minute mark, but Araujo could hardly be faulted as it was a hopeful Vinicius Jr. cross from the byline that struck his head with pace and dropped in behind a helpless Marc-André ter Stegen.
The goal lifted the visitors, who were being over-run prior to Araujo's misfortune, and they looked the better side for the quarter-hour after going up. But Barca eventually played themselves back into the game, and at the stroke of halftime Sergi Roberto struck for an equalizer.
Coming out of the break, Real Madrid looked as though they would be able to press out of Barcelona's possession advantage, but that was brief and the home side once again found joy all over the pitch. Yet despite dominating on the ball, Barca's lack of cutting edge in front of goal nearly came back to haunt them as Marco Asensio completed a rare Madrid foray into the Barca penalty area with a cool finish in the 81st minute. However, VAR determined that Asensio was offside, and the teams remained level heading into the dying moments of the match.
As the fourth official indicated five more minutes to be played, both teams seemed to throw caution to the wind as a thrilling 90 seconds of back-and-forth football eventually led to the game-winner. Second-half substitute Franck Kessié was the hero with his 92nd-minute strike, but it was thanks to the handiwork of Robert Lewandowski and Alejandro Balde that Kessié found himself with a wide-open net to shoot at, as Lewandowski's jaw-dropping backheel nutmeg pass set Balde up for an inch-perfect cross to the awaiting goal scorer.
The result gives Barcelona a commanding 12-point lead atop La Liga with 12 matches remaining.