DBasia.news – Visiting Sevilla’s home, Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan in the first leg of Copa del Rey quarter-final, Thursday (24/1), FC Barcelona got defeated 0-2.
Ernesto Valverde changed the whole squad. The new recruit from Sassuolo Kevin-Prince Boateng became the starter with Carles Arena, Malcom, Arthur Melo, and Jasper Cillessen.
Luis Suarez was benched and Lionel Messi took a break. Consequently, the front line strength of Barca decreased. Sevilla utilized it with their effective performance despite the 39% ball possession.
Sevilla created 18 kicks and three of them on target, two became the goals. Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan’s public boomed when Sevilla created the goal at 58′.
Real Madrid target Pablo Sarabia responded to the cross passing from Quincy Promes and scored the goal to Cillessen. Using that moment, Wissam Ben Yedder secured the victory by his kick responding to Ever Banega’s deflected ball.
Barca del Rey’s four-year domination might end by this failure. However, Barca still have the chance from the second leg at Camp Nou. The public at Camp Nou is familiar with the reversing goal aggregate situation.
Certainly, Valverde won’t repeat his mistake in the upcoming match and would place La Pulga since the beginning. Without Messi, Barcelona got 25 percent of the failures this season from all competitions.
“Barcelona have lost 25% of their games without Lionel Messi this season in all competitions (2/8) compared to 8.3% with him (2/24). Essential,” @OptaJose tweeted.