Barcelona, Spain.- The Spanish goalkeeper with Mexican nationality, Alex Padilla had another outstanding performance in LaLiga during Athletic Club de Bilbao’s visit to FC Barcelona for Matchday 2 of the 2024-25 campaign at the Montjuic Olympic Stadium.
Despite the fact that the Catalan team won 2-1 at home over the “Lions”, the goalkeeper of the red-and-white team made two crucial saves in his performance, the first in the 52nd minute when in a great clearing he prevented Ferran Torres from lobbing the ball to him by putting his right hand out to control the ball in the vote and the second in the 63rd minute when he stopped a shot off the line from Robert Lewandowski with pure reflex.
Lamine Yamal put Hansi Flick’s side ahead in the 24th minute after Padilla’s fisted rebound fell to the Spanish European champion and after cutting inside Nico Williams he shot wide, although Íñigo Lekue deflected the ball from the position where the goalkeeper had already measured the ball and it ended up going into his own net, but Bilbao went into the break with the score tied thanks to a penalty awarded by VAR that was well taken advantage of by Oihan Saucet in the 42nd minute. Already in the second half and after Padilla had twice denied the Blaugrana a second goal, a ball filtered by Raphinha for Pedri ended in a cross on the run that the tricolor rejected and left the ball served to Lewandowski to score the winning goal at 75 minutes of the match and give Barcelona second place in the Spanish football standings with six points, while Athletic Club stayed with one point in 15th position.
In the upcoming double date in Spanish football, Athletic Club will have two matches at San Mamés against Valencia and Atlético de Madrid, so they will look to bounce back from the tough start.
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