Match Report/Highlight: Bilbao 4vs0 Barcelona
massive hit in Bilbao as the Catalans lost
in stunning fashion to Athletic Bilbao. Led
by the always dangerous Aritz Aduriz,
who tormented Barça with a hat-trick this
time around, Athletic made Barcelona
look completely helpless. It was a
forgettable night in which poor choices
and big mistakes almost certainly cost
Barcelona the Supercopa de España. Mikel
San Jose fired the first torpedo in the
sinking of FC Barcelona at San Mames.
Athletic
Bilbao Barcelona
Possession 32 68
Total Shots 9 8
Shots on Target 4 4
Corners 5 7
Fouls 21 11
Offsides 2 3
Yellow Cards 6 5
Red Cards 0 0
In a surprise development, Luis Enrique ,
probably partially due to the fact that
Barcelona played 120 minutes of grueling
football on Tuesday, opted to make
several changes in the lineup. Five new
players entered the starting XI, while two,
Javier Mascherano and Rafinha, started
this match at a different position they
played in Georgia. The midfield was
completely new, with the aforementioned
duo playing alongside of Sergi Roberto.
Three changes were made in defense,
where Marc Bartra , Thomas Vermaelen
and Adriano Correia formed a back four
with mainstay Dani Alves. In attack Pedro
started with the M and S of the MSN trio.
Unlike in the European Super Cup, where
the game started in dramatic fashion with
some stunning early goals, in the
Supercopa neither team was firing on all
cylinders early on. Barcelona were clearly
missing their usual midfield creators,
something Athletic tried to turn in their
favor with high pressure with which
Barcelona struggled mightily. The midfield
was unable to hold onto the ball and
some poor passing from the back-line,
most notably from Marc-Andre ter Stegen,
led to some quick counterattacks from the
hosts.
The most fierce Athletic onslaught came
around the 10th minute, when Barcelona
couldn't get the ball more then 30 yards
away from ter Stegen's goal. The hosts
were threatening from open play and
from dead ball situations, but Barcelona
somehow survived. Or so it appeared. The
one time in that stretch that Barcelona
cleared the ball all to way to Athletic
goalkeeper Gorka Iraizoz, in the 13th
minute, ter Stegen went 25 yards out to
unnecessarily head the return ball to
midfield instead of waiting for it to reach
his area where he would have more
options. The header almost reached
midfield, straight to the waiting San Jose,
who immediately powered it back from
47.57 meters away, over the head of the
young German and into the back of the
net.
After conceding the goal, Barcelona slowly
started to develop their game, but their
decisions had to be extra quick as a result
of Athletic's relentless pressing. It was far
from an easy task for the Catalans, but on
occasion they actually created a scoring
chance. The first one, however, didn't
come until the 27th minute when Alves
sent a very useful cross into the area.
Suarez tried to work his magic, and even
drew Iraizoz way off his line, but at this
point both were so deep that the
Uruguayan had no shot on goal. Instead,
Suarez lobbed the keeper to set up a goal
for one of his teammates, but San Jose
managed to clear the ball from danger.
As soon as Athletic increased the intensity
of the press again, Barcelona started
losing possession left, right and middle
and could barely get into the opposing
half. It was hardly a showing Barcelona
would be proud of. But after laboring
through the half, the Catalans would have
one last shot at tying the game at one,
after Pedro was brought down about 22
yards from goal. The kick was slightly
from the left side, so it wasn't ideal for
Lionel Messi , but against Sevilla the
Argentine showed that matters little when
he's in such form as he is in now. Messi
came close to showing that again, curling
a free kick over the wall, but the
experienced Iraizoz read his intentions
excellently, punching the ball out of play,
but the referee whistled for halftime
before Barcelona could take the resulting
corner kick.
The second half kicked off with much
better intensity, especially from
Barcelona, and the Catalans quickly
created the best two chances from open
play they had all night. First one came
from a defensive mistake by Aymeric
Laporte, which left Pedro one-on-one
with Iraizoz. Pedro powered a high shot
on goal that beat the keeper, but it didn't
beat the crossbar, with the ball bouncing
off it to the groung about 1 yard from the
goal-line. The very next minute Suarez
found Messi who sent a first-time shot on
target, but Iraizoz was there again to
make a great save on the Argentine.
Hoping to turn the game around, Lucho
then brought on Iniesta in place of
Rafinha. Two minutes later Roberto made
a mistake in midfield which 10 seconds
later resulted in a goal by noted Barcelona
killer, Aduriz. In typical fashion, Aduriz
rose the highest and left ter Stegen with
no chance. Now two goals down, a fire
started burning under Lucho's hot seat
and he brought in some reinforcements,
as Rakitić replaced Roberto. But it was
now too little too late from both the coach
and the team as that Aduriz header
marked the beginning of the end.
In the 62nd minute, a seemingly harmless
cross from the right suddenly became
dangerous as Alves terribly cleared the
ball right in front of goal. The Barcelona
center-back duo reacted poorly and
Aduriz was there to pound the ball into
the net. That was not all from Aduriz,
who would complete the classic hat-trick
five minutes later from a penalty kick
after what can only be described as
stupidity from Alves, who made the
boneheaded play of committing a foul 15
yards away from the ball. With that goal,
Aduriz became the first player since 2005
to complete the hat-trick against
Barcelona and Barcelona conceded four
goals in consecutive games for the first
time since April 2001.
In the 68th minute Enrique completed his
last personnel change, taking off Pedro,
who was by now in big danger of picking
up his second yellow card of the night,
and replacing him with Sandro. With
nothing to lose Barcelona pushed forward
in search of a away goal that would
restore a small glimmer of hope before
the second leg, but Athletic's defensive
line held it's ground and the hosts were
able to deservedly celebrate the big win.
Barcelona will now have to hope for a
miracle on Monday at the Camp Nou.
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Source: Barcablaugranes.com
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