Real Betis 1-1 Barcelona: Last-minute Luis Suarez strike earns champions a point

Barcelona were grateful to Luis Suarez's last-minute goal that rescued a point against Real Betis at the Benito Villamarin on Sunday.

The Catalans needed a win to go top of the table, albeit until Real Madrid played later in the day, but fell behind to Alex Alegria's strike 15 minutes from time.

However, Barca left Seville with a point after Luiz Suarez levelled matters late on, although they will feel they should have taken all three after controversially being denied a second-half 'goal', despite the ball being a yard over the goal-line.

As a result, Luis Enrique's side have moved up to second in the table, one point behind Los Blancos, but they have played two more games than their rivals.

Centre-back Javier Mascherano was only fit enough for a place on the bench, while forward Rafinha (hamstring) and holding midfielder Sergio Busquets (ankle) were both out with injury.

However, after a promising start to proceedings in Seville, with Suarez seeing one goalbound effort crucially deflected behind for an early corner, the home side gradually grew into the contest.

The closest Betis came to opening the scoring came after 19 minutes when Barca No 1 Marc-Andre ter Stegen was forced to turn behind Dani Ceballos' curling effort from the edge of the area.

The Catalans, though, remained a constant threat on the counter, as they demonstrated seven minutes before half-time after a free-flowing passing move took them the length of the field.

But after Lionel Messi's inch-perfect through ball had split open the Betis back four, goalkeeper Antonio Adan raced off his line to deny Neymar with an excellent point-blank save.

However, after a quiet opening to the second period, followed by a raft of changes by both managers, the game really burst into life in the final 20 minutes, starting with another blistering long-range strike from Ceballos that beat Ter Stegen, only to clip the top of the bar.

The home side's frustrations grew minutes later when the outstanding Ruben Castro struck the post, although that miss was soon forgotten as Betis broke the deadlock from the resulting corner.

Ter Stegen was unable to gather the inswinging delivery from the right under extreme pressure from a posse of players in the six-yard box, with Alegria there to blast home from close range.

Barca almost levelled immediately after a fine move cut open their opponents, but despite the ball appearing to have crossed the line after Cristiano Piccini had diverted Aleix Vidal's pull back goalwards, the officials waved play on as Aissa Mandi made a desperate clearance.

Incredibly, moments later and Mandi was again there to make a last-gasp goal-line clearance after Vidal's cross was again diverted goalwards, however, this time the whole of the ball had not crossed the whole of the line.

Betis really should have ended the game as a contest with nine minutes to go after a simple clearance up field saw Castro race through one on one with Ter Stegen, only for the German to make a crucial block.

And the hosts were made to pay for that miss when substitute Matias Nahuel was robbed just outside his box by of all people Lionel Messi, with the Argentine then releasing Suarez, who made no mistake with a cool low finish past Adan for his 16th league goal of the season.