Barcelona vs. Athletic Bilbao: Winners and Losers from Spanish Super Cup 2nd Leg
Athletic Bilbao finally brought an end to more than 30 trophy-less years as they drew, 1-1, with Barcelona in the Camp Nou to win the Spanish Supercopa, 5-1, on aggregate.
The lopsided win at San Mames on Friday laid the foundation for Athletic's title. Barcelona dominated this second leg but lacked the penetration they needed. Lionel Messi eventually made the breakthrough just before half-time, but Gerard Pique's send-off essentially ended the contest. Aritz Aduriz then netted the equaliser before Kike Sola also saw red.
Here are all of our winners and losers from a hugely entertaining 90 minutes.
Loser: Gerard Pique
1 of 5
Gerard Pique had been absolutely phenomenal in the opening 50 minutes or so, rampaging forward from centre-back to centre-forward at times and covering the full-back areas superbly, too.
That all came to an end just before the hour mark as he took offence to a non-call of a probable offside decision and furiously berated the assistant, leading to the referee striding over and showing him a straight red card.
It was probably harsh on Pique, just for dissent, but it still put his team out of the running for the amazing comeback they hoped for. He'll miss the first Liga game, which is also against Athletic Bilbao.
Loser: Pedro
2 of 5
Another fairly angry and ineffective performance from Pedro looks to be the way he'll be heading out of the club; the wide forward started from the left, but the best word to describe his time on the pitch was, frustratingly, offside.
Much of Barcelona's best play came down his channel but did not run through him, as he remained largely on the periphery, spurned the odd chance and continually mistimed his runs forward.
Pedro was subbed after 67 minutes—certainly not as glorious an exit as he made after the UEFA Super Cup.
Loser: Jeremy Mathieu
3 of 5
The third and final loser also comes from the Blaugrana, with left-back Jeremy Mathieu having another poor game.
Sure, he's only filling in the position at the moment, but he's hardly a novice—most of his early career was in the position. He was extremely subpar with his positional play, as evidenced by his direct duels against Markel Susaeta and Oscar de Marcos, as well as his delivery from wide in the final third, aside from one driven cross.
Barcelona missed Jordi Alba's penetration from deep in a big way.
Winner: Andres Iniesta
4 of 5
The best player on the field for Barcelona, by some distance, was Andres Iniesta. He, along with Javier Mascherano, seemed to have the most belief in the team's ability to mount the comeback; it didn't happen in the end, but that wasn't for a lack of effort on Iniesta's behalf.
The midfielder found spaces, used his quick feet and inventive passing and made consistent ground through the packed Athletic defence only to be denied by offside flags, wayward shooting or last-ditch blocks.
He missed a presentable chance on goal himself in the first half, but overall, he was still an impressive performer.
Winner: Ernesto Valverde
5 of 5
For Athletic Bilbao, it's tough to pick out individual players who shone as such, as the performance came down to organisation, team ethic and hard work more than anything else—both defensively and on the counter-attack.
Yes, Aritz Aduriz will take acclaim for his goals over the two legs, and rightly so, but in truth, he was overly aggressive during the game. He could have been sent off and nearly passed up the simple opportunity presented to him to level matters.
Instead, we'll deem Athletic's real winner the manager, Ernesto Valverde, who set his side up very well and made it difficult for Barcelona to find spaces to get their quick attackers in behind.
Valverde previously helped Athletic qualify for the Champions League, has them in Europe again this season despite last season's awful start and now has ended their long wait for a trophy.
A fantastic job well done.
