Barcelona secured a commanding 2-0 win over Athletic Bilbao in the semi-finals of the Supercopa de España. Barcelona confirmed its spot in the tournament’s finals after a solid performance overall.
Key Performers
Overall, the team’s performance deserves immense praise, Barcelona showcased complete dominance in both halves. The goals came from Gavi and Lamine Yamal, stepping up at crucial moments.
Among the standout performances was Pedri, whose patience on the ball highlighted Barcelona’s midfield with 52/59 complete passes. Marc Casadó also had a great game playing more defensively controlling the possession thoroughly. Gavi who started for the team after so long had a strong performance, his pressing was really important to get the ball back and got himself a crucial goal and assist.
From the fullbacks both Koundé and Balde had a great game, both were attentive defensively and also contributed to the attack, with Balde getting an assist to his name for the first goal.
Szczęsny made it to the starting XI of the game due to internal issues between Flick and Pena. Szczęsny had a great game and was the player of the match with the highest rating among all the players. He had 6/6 successful run-outs, with 43/50 accurate passes, and 5 crucial saves.
First Half
Barcelona started the game off with an all-out press in front which led to a few early mistakes from Bilbao’s defense, Barcelona got two early chances to score from Raphinha but was unsuccessful in getting it past. Barcelona scored in the 17th minute thanks to Gavi’s finish, who was provided an easy cut-back from Balde at the left flank, making the score 1-0.
Barcelona almost doubled their lead of Raphinha’s one on one chance against Unai Simón, but the keeper came up front. Barcelona had a few more chances but couldn’t carry the momentum overall.
Near the end of the first half, Bilbao created some chances from the wings through Williams and Berenguer, but Barcelona’s defense came out top.
Second Half
Barcelona started the second half by getting the second goal, Gavi played a brilliant pass to Lamine Yamal who controlled the ball with a 360 turn and finished calmly passing Unai Simón to double the lead just eight minutes into the second half.
Bilbao made a few changes to be back in the game, Bilbao used long balls to get chances out of Barcelona’s high defensive line but Barcelona was good in defense to deny any threat. Bilbao also launched some shots out of the box, but Szczesny was never truly in trouble.
In the last few minutes of the game, Bilbao switched their play to an all-out-attack, Bilbao scored twice first through de Marcos who was played through on goal by Nico Williams and chipped the ball over Szczesny, then four minutes later Frenkie de Jong lost the ball in midfield and Iñaki Williams scored an easy one on one chance. Both goals were disallowed for offside and Bilbao was denied any chance to comeback.
Poor Performers
Lewandowski was nowhere to be seen, he had only 1 shot in the minutes he got and 0 on target. The one shot he had came in the second half from Raphinha’s cut-back and Lewandowski missed an easy tap-in. Adding to this, he lost the ball 16 times, which is quite unacceptable for a player of his kind.
Raphinha was also not in good form, as he missed many opportunities despite being in great form.