Barcelona goalie Garcia shrugs off hostile homecoming at Espanyol for derby win

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Goalkeeper Joan García shrugged off the jeers and vitriol in his return to Espanyol and Barcelona teammate Fermín López set up two late goals for a 2-0 victory in a heated Catalan derby on Saturday.

Fermín assisted fellow substitutes Dani Olmo and Robert Lewandowski in the 86th and 90th minutes to tilt the match in favor of the La Liga leaders.

But the credit for the win went to García, who made superb saves to frustrate an Espanyol attack that dominated all but the final period.

The final score hid a superb effort by fifth-placed Espanyol. Pere Milla and Roberto Fernández drew save after save from García, who was playing his first game at Espanyol since he left the “parakeets” last summer for its top rival. His highlight came in the 39th when García used a reflex one-hand save to paw a point-blank header by Milla over his crossbar.

Espanyol went as far as installing a thin mesh barrier behind the goals at RCDE Stadium to impede any object from being thrown toward the goalie from the stands. That did not dissuade the section of the club’s most fervent young supporters from holding up signs with the image of a rat in Barcelona’s burgundy-and-blue colors while shouting at García, a former fan favorite.

“Espanyol played a fantastic game. We didn’t deserve it (the win),” Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said. “I have to say thank you to Joan García. He played an unbelievable match. He is one of the best goalkeepers in the world and we had the players off the bench who showed the quality this team has.”

Flick also credited Espanyol coach Manolo González for having given García the “confidence” to grow last season, when he caught the eye of many top clubs in Europe.

“(García) plays for us now and he has played unbelievable all season. He played fantastic and the clean sheet today was his responsibility.”

Olmo broke through for Barcelona when he used one smooth touch to lob a pass by Fermín over Espanyol goalie Marko Dimitrovic. Fermín then followed that by dribbling past his marker inside the right side of the box before laying off for Lewandowski to finish off Espanyol.

Before that late burst by Barcelona, the action had mostly been in García's box where he made three stops to turn back Roberto in the second half.

The loss broke a run of five straight victories by Espanyol, its best winning run since the 1998-99 season.

“Today was a day to win and we let it get away from us,” Espanyol's González said.

Next up for Barcelona is a trip to Saudi Arabia for the Spanish Super Cup along with Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao from Jan. 7-11.

Barcelona increased its lead over second-placed Real Madrid to seven points before the latter hosts Real Betis on Sunday.

Villarreal beat Elche 3-1 to end a run of three straight losses across the league, Champions League and Copa del Rey. The victory on the road ensured Villarreal maintained third place in the table 11 points behind Barcelona.

It was the first home loss for Elche since it returned to the top flight this season in surprisingly strong style.

Borja Iglesias scored twice as Celta Vigo routed Valencia 4-1 at home, leaving the visitor on the brink of the relegation zone after just one win in 13 rounds.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” beleaguered Valencia coach Carlos Corberán said.

Also, Athletic Bilbao drew at Osasuna 1-1.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Barcelona's goalkeeper Joan Garcia, top, clears the ball during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between RCD Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Barcelona's Dani Olmo celebrates scoring his side's opening goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between RCD Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Espanyol's Pere Milla, right, reacts after missing a chance to score during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between RCD Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Espanyol fans hold up signs protesting Barcelona goalkeeper Joan Garcia during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between RCD Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Barcelona's Dani Olmo (20) is congratulated by Fermin Lopez after scoring his side's opening goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between RCD Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

NEW YORK (AP) — On a recent weeknight, three tenants of an aging Bronx building were trading apartment horror stories inside a packed ballroom lined with city bureaucrats.

The occasion was the third in a series of “rental rip-off hearings,” a new forum launched by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for disgruntled renters to air their complaints directly to housing officials — and in some cases, the mayor himself.

As she waited in line, Gulhayo Yuldosheva said she worried that noxious mold in her apartment had worsened her child’s asthma. Nearby, her downstairs neighbor, Marina Quiroz, was showing a video of rats scurrying through her kitchen to a representative of the city’s tenant protection office.

Ann Maitin, a longtime resident of the same building, had just met with the mayor.

“He let me go over my three minutes,” she said, holding up a spiral notebook’s worth of grievances.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist swept into office on a promise of zealous tenant advocacy, framed the event as a struggle session for renters, assuring the standing room only crowd that their stories would guide the city's efforts “to actually hold landlords accountable when they don’t follow the law."

To the residents of 705 Gerard Avenue, this raised a practical problem: No one seemed to know who actually owned their building.

“It feels like such a basic question,” said Maitin, a retired Verizon technician who recently organized the building’s tenant association. “You’d think we’d have the right to that information.”

Their situation is hardly unique. As corporate owners and investor groups have grown their share of the rental market in New York City, they are increasingly shielding their identities behind limited liability companies, or LLCs.

The practice, which has also been spreading nationally, is legal. But experts warn it could complicate Mamdani’s promised crackdown, making it harder for the city and tenants to track the chronically negligent owners whose buildings the mayor has vowed to target and even seize.

“There are these big slumlords that everyone knows are doing predatory investment, but pinning them down is going to be difficult, for the LLC reason,” said Oksana Mironova, a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. “That’s a problem for the administration, and it’s even worse for tenants.”

For Yuldosheva and her neighbors, finding their landlord is one of many problems afflicting their six-story building near Yankee Stadium.

Heat and hot water outages are regular enough that some tenants keep a thermometer on their fridge and the city’s complaint hotline on speed dial. Common areas are often filthy, and increasingly populated by drug users. Getting help with an urgent maintenance issue “feels like waiting for Christmas in July,” said Maitin.

During a monthslong elevator outage, a tenant who uses a wheelchair, Tommy Rodriguez, said he was forced to “slide down the steps, like a kid.” Calls to the building management about a repair timeline went unanswered, he said.

Growing up in the building in the 1980s, Rodriguez recalled the previous landlord as a friendly and responsive neighborhood presence.

“This felt like a home before,” Rodriguez said. “Now they treat us the same as the rats.”

A large rodent had recently chewed a hole through his couch cushion. He handled the extermination himself, with a two-by-four.

Recently, tenants received a clue about their landlord, following the partial collapse of another Bronx building. The man identified in news stories as the owner of that building, David Kleiner, shared a Brooklyn office with their building manager, Binyomin Herzl.

A handful of tenants visited each of the building’s 72 units, logging an array of decrepit conditions and unusual alterations.

“We didn’t want to become the next news story,” said Yuldosheva, pointing to a crack in the wall of a bedroom shared by her three children — a result, she feared, of the subway that rumbles just below her windows.

Lawsuits show that Herzl has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 for violations across at least six Bronx buildings, several of which were found by a judge to pose an imminent hazard.

Reached by phone, Herzl said he didn't own any of those properties, but simply acted as a middleman between tenants and the true owners, whom he declined to list. “There’s no one landlord,” he said. “It’s a group of investors.”

Kleiner, who was previously featured on the city’s “worst landlord” list, confirmed his partial ownership of 705 Gerard in a brief phone call, but declined further comment.

Herzl, meanwhile, attributed the tenants’ complaints to “normal wear and tear” of a nearly century old building. He said Mamdani should focus on improving the city’s public housing, rather than going after private landlords.

“Our buildings look like five star hotels against his,” he added.

When landlords refuse to address a serious violation, like heat or hot water outages, the city can step in and order repairs, then bill the owner directly.

In the last three years, inspectors have ordered emergency repairs at 38 buildings that list either Herzl or Kleiner as an owner, according to records provided by the city’s housing department. The men have been billed $446,521 for those repairs.

Mamdani has proposed using such fines as a vehicle to bring distressed rental properties under city stewardship, by aggressively pursuing liens on delinquent landlords and buying up their portfolios through foreclosure auctions.

Just as the city can shut down unsanitary restaurants, Mamdani has said, landlords that “repeatedly put New Yorkers at risk will not be allowed to operate in New York City — with no exceptions."

In reality, the process is resource-intensive and legally fraught. It is made more complex by the nest of LLCs often used by landlords to obfuscate the full scope of their portfolios, according to Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants.

“It’d be great to have a better sense of who owns the buildings that we are regulating and overseeing,” she said.

State legislation that would have made it easier to identify LLC owners was recently vetoed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul amid pressure from landlords.

Kenny Burgos, the CEO of the New York Apartment Association, a landlord lobbying group, said Mamdani’s tenant proposals — including freezing the rent for regulated tenants — would force landlords to cut back on maintenance and services.

“That’s going to take away from the elevator budget, the boiler budget, the heating budget,” he said. “It’s a question of math: These buildings are crumbling because of policy, not because of bad landlords.”

He characterized the rental rip-off hearings as “show trials” that took a “tribal approach” to the city’s affordable housing crisis.

Despite the combative branding — “New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords,” blares one promotion — the Bronx event mostly resembled a standard constituent service night: City officials fielded questions about local laws, helped residents with paperwork and connected them to service providers.

Maitin left feeling “glad to be heard by someone who can actually do something about the problem,” but felt it was too early to tell “if it’s all talk."

The next morning, she was surprised to find the building’s superintendent applying a fresh coat of paint to a staircase. Outside, workers were removing scaffolding that had been in front of the building for years.

“I think they caught wind of the rental rip-off,” Maitin said. “They’re scared.”

FILE - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Rental Ripoff Hearing at Fordham University on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)

Gulhayo Yuldosheva's children get ready for school in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Francisco Medina, left, cleans his apartment next to his relative, Maria Frias, right, in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Gulhayo Yuldosheva, 33 , center right, Marina Quiroz, 65, top, pose for a portrait with other two residents in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Tommy Rodriguez, right, talks to his relative, Francisco Medina, left, in an apartment building where tenants report maintenance issues and pest infestations, in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Marina Quiroz stands in her living room in a Bronx apartment building, where tenants report maintenance issues, pest infestations, Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)