Barça also suffers against Barbastro

“It's going to be important to respect the rival. If we think it's going to be easy, we're wrong,” Xavi said the day before, and he was consistent with the lineup. The Barça coach made rotations, yes, but just enough. He set up an eleven with Koundé, Christensen and Araujo at the back, with Frenkie de Jong at the helm and with three top-level footballers up top, such as Joao Félix, Raphinha and Ferran Torres. The message was clear, avoid relaxation. So it was. His team picked up the gauntlet and came out very involved in the game, ready to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Barça besieged Barbastro from all fronts. He settled in the opposite field, overflowed from the sides and generated three clear chances in the first minutes, but as usual, he did not have enough aim to beat Arnay Fàbrega.

It was a start in which it was clear what the scene of the crash was going to be. Barbastro did not give up the attack and those joys of the locals were going to be a double-edged sword. In one of those, Raphinha won the back on par with him and put a ball back that Fermín finished to open the scoring and ruin the local parish party. The goal was the consequence of what was being reflected on the field of play. Barça took the match very seriously and the goal was not going to stop the momentum of a team that was going to continue looking for the second. The culés maintained the pressure in the opposite field at all times and before the break they could have scored the second if Pulido Santana had not disallowed a goal by Joao Félix for non-existent offside. Since there was no VAR in the Copa del Rey until the quarterfinals, the Blaugranas were left with honey on their lips before going to the locker room.

After the restart, Barça sought the ruling as soon as possible. Christmas provisionally, the ghost of a possible setback. That advantage led, to Xavi's despair, to relaxation. The Barça coach grimaced on the sideline as he saw how his team progressively lifted their foot off the accelerator. The speed in circulation and the pressure without the ball were no longer the same and the combative Barbastro took advantage of that to little by little come forward. After several dangerous lateral crosses, Adrià de Mesa hunted down a commotion in the area to close the gap and add a little spice to the match.

Barça had taken a step back and Xavi had already seen the wolf's ears. The Catalan coach wanted to change the dynamic of the match and introduced Iñigo Martínez, who due to an injury lasted ten minutes in the return of him, Vitor Roque, Gündogan and Lewandowski. Four changes that denoted that something was not going quite right. And the culés were on the ledge. The game at times broke down and Barbastro still had the chance to make a splash. The stands were coming up and preparing for a roller coaster. In the last minutes there was a penalty from Javito that Lewandowski converted and another from Fermín that Prat scored to close the game with a result that shows that it was by no means a placid night for the Blaugranas.