Europa League | Barcelona 1-1 Napoli: Partenopei silence Camp Nou

Napoli earned a valuable 1-1 draw away to Barcelona at Camp Nou with Piotr Zielinski’s strike cancelled out by a Ferran Torres penalty in the Europa League Play-Off first leg.

This fixture was introduced by UEFA for the teams who finished third in their Champions League groups and second in the Europa League, a two-legged play-off for access to the Round of 16. The away goals rule is no longer valid this season.

The Partenopei were missing Hirving Lozano, Stanislav Lobotka and Matteo Politano, but Victor Osimhen started despite a knee issue. The Blaugrana started a trident of January signings, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ferran Torres and Adama Traoré, but were forced into changes by injuries to Sergio Busquets, Ronald Araujo, Clement Lenglet, Samuel Umtiti, Alex Balde, Sergi Roberto, Ansu Fati and Memphis Depay, while Dani Alves was not on the UEFA list.

There were 75,000 people at the sold-out Camp Nou, including at least 5,000 Napoli supporters.

Europa League Liveblog: Barcelona-Napoli, Porto-Lazio, Atalanta-Olympiacos

Nico Gonzalez stung Alex Meret’s gloves at the near post, Osimhen doing the same after springing the offside trap on an inspired Piotr Zielinski through ball.

Kalidou Koulibaly made a sensational tackle on Adama Traore, who was offside anyway, and Ferran Torres wasted a golden opportunity by blasting over after a heavy touch.

Moments later, Napoli took the lead instead. Eljif Elmas sent Jordi Alba to ground with a dummy and rolled across for Piotr Zielinski, whose first shot from 10 yards was parried by Marc-Andre Ter Stegen, but the Poland international smashed the rebound into the roof of the net.

Barcelona fall behind against Napoli… 🤭

A brilliant team move from the visitors, and on his second attempt, Piotr Zieliński slams the ball home! 💥

Work to do for Xavi’s men…#UEL pic.twitter.com/lU2uEydVRH

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) February 17, 2022

Ferran Torres nodded wide from a promising position and Barca saw a lot more of the ball after the restart, but the decisive moment was a Traore cross that grazed the fingertips of Juan Jesus. Nobody had complained at the time, but the referee was called back by VAR and awarded the penalty, which Ferran Torres calmly converted.

Napoli were down to 10 men for several minutes in the final stages after Zambo Anguissa went off injured and it took a long time to get the substitutions ready.

The hosts had several big chances approaching time, as first Ferran Torres again fired off target after a really good passing move, then nobody was able to get on the end of an Ousmane Dembele pull-back from the by-line.

Substitute Luuk de Jong saw his acrobatic over-head kick whistle wide, while at the other end Dries Mertens on the half-volley fired straight at Ter Stegen.

Fabian Ruiz made a decisive header deep into stoppages, smashing into Gavi and leaving the midfielder bleeding heavily, so Napoli finished the game with 10 men.

Barcelona 1-1 Napoli

Zielinski 29 (N), Ferran Torres pen 58 (B)