For Barcelona fans and supporters, Thursday night isn't a night to remember, as they watched their fears come to reality. Barca is out of Copa Del rey! In other words, the Catalan giants have got just the Spanish league and the UEFA champions league to battle for this season. Their 1-0 defeat to Athletic Bilbao in their quarter final encounter also marks the end of a treble for the Spanish champions this season. We watched Real Sociedad eliminate Real Madrid earlier in the competition and most of us heaved a sigh of relief that our biggest foe were already out of the way. Being a Barca fan, my confidence had doubled as regards Barca lifting the Copa this season. However, it was obviuus Athletic Bilbao had other plans, and just like they did against Barca in their last match, they repeated same scoreline to dump the Messi led side out of the competition. It's really sad and Setien has got lots of work to do. He has been a bit unfortunate especially as regards his frontline. With Luis Suarez and Dembele out injured and Barca's inabilty to sign a first team deserving player in the just concluded January transfer, the coach seems left to manage the ones available. Athletic Bilbao had waited for the best moment to strike Setien's side, and it did came at the tail end, with Barcelona not having the time to launch a comeback.
The game which took place at San Mames saw Inaki Williams heading in a late goal to see Barca off, it was all they needed to book a spot in the semis. The media is already raging and lots of Barca supporters are calling for the sack of Eric Abidal who is the Club's Sports director for making such distracting comments, which many are pointing to as one of the causes of Barca's defeat. Well, for me, I can't say Barca lost because of the Messi-Abidal saga. The Blaugrana failed to take their chances when it came knocking, and they paid dearly for that, sadly there is no second leg to right wrongs. Sergio Busquest also think it's not the saga that affected their game, for him, it's one of those sad games that won't just go your way. "We are just focused on the sporting side of things,” Busquets said when asked about the situation with Messi. “We won in the league at the weekend but it wasn't to be today. It's a sad day for everyone. We didn't want to go out. We have two competitions left; we have to keep on fighting. We have to continue. Everyone's angry. We did things well. We deserved to go through, but this is the new Copa,” Busquets added. In one isolated moment, it can slip away from you. A fateful ending after all that happened. That's football. One cross has ended up in the back of the net. We'd managed the game well; we knew how to suffer but one detail and you're gone,” he said after the game. With Madrid already topping the league with three points, a further slack from Barca could see them go trophyless this season, because the Champions league is a bit far from reach now. Setien will need to put this behind him, motivate his squad ahead of their Champions like adventure against Napoli.
Comments