Following the midweek suffering against Spanish third tier Ibiza in the Copa del Rey, Barcelona met their first defeat with Setien as their manager. This Saturday at the Mestalla Stadium hosts Valencia beat Barcelona 2-0, for the 21st matchweek of Spanish La Liga. The result was terrible for Barca’s aspirations as they can be surpassed by Real Madrid in the table.

Barca had fired Ernesto Valverde with the team leading the league, replacing the now-former coach with Quique Setien, who has added his first defeat in three games at the helm of the Catalan club. When he took over Barca, Setien promised a beautiful game style for his team, but, so far, it was not what was seen on the field.

Even though Barcelona had more than 70% of ball possession in the game, Valencia proved to be much more efficient and aggressive in search of the goal. The main reason for that was being in front of their fans.

The first main event of the match happened at the 10th minute when Pique brought Gaya down inside the area. Gomez was the one to take the pen, but he stopped in the German goalkeeper Ter Stegen. And the number 1 made everything possible to keep the scoring level during all the first half.

However, in the third minute into the second half, Valencia finally found their goal. Gomez collected the ball in the right inside channel and sent a powerful effort towards the goal. It still deflected off Alba before finding the back of the net.

After being behind on the scoring, Barca tried to create more and have a few chances with Alba and Messi. But it was the home side that scored, once again with Gomez. At the 77th minute, Torres architected the play and Gomez, with a curling shot, sent the ball around Sergi Roberto and past Ter Steggen. 2-0 and the 3 points for the hosts.

With the victory, Valencia moves up to 5th place, with 34 points, with a possibility of going down in the table depending on the result of Getafe’s match. Barcelona, the current leader of the competition, may lose the first place if Real Madrid wins their match against Real Valladolid, away.