Barcelona’s second-choice striker sent a timely reminder to Hansi Flick as they romped past Valencia to reach the last four of the Copa del Rey
Ferran Torres returned to haunt his old club with a first-half hat-trick as Barcelona thumped Valencia 5-0 in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals.
The forward, who was at Los Che between 2006-20, gave Barca the perfect start when he swept home Alejandro Balde’s brilliant pass into the box in the third minute.
The ex-Manchester City ace – who came in for top scorer Robert Lewandowski – made it 2-0 in the 17th minute when he fired past Stole Dimitrievski, with the goal eventually allowed to stand following a VAR review.
Fermin Lopez got in on the act six minutes later when he raced onto Pedri’s sumptuous floated pass, took it around the goalkeeper in consummate style, and knocked the ball into an empty net. Torres then bagged his third when he found the corner after a lovely lay-off from captain Raphinha on the half-hour mark.
Umar Sadiq looked to have pulled a goal back just after the interval, only to be denied by the offside flag. Their bad luck continued when the Nigerian won his team a penalty, before that was pulled back for another offside.
Yamal was inches away from grabbing a brilliant individual goal but his curling effort cannoned off the wrong side of the post. The 17-year-old did, however, get on the scoresheet when his deflected effort squirmed past Dimitrievski in the 59th minute.
The ‘ole-ing’ away support wanted a repeat of the Blaugrana’s 7-1 win over Valencia in La Liga last month but in the end they had to settle for a 5-0 victory on Thursday night.
GOAL rates Barcelona’s players from Mestalla…