Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Barcelona: 3 reasons why Barcelona suffered a defeat

Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga Athl
Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga Athl

#2 Failure to convert possession into clear-cut chances

Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga
Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga

Despite being second-best in the first half, Barcelona hit the woodwork twice. The first chance went to Luis Suarez who hit the woodwork from very close in, and the second was a brilliant shot from Rafinha that required a finger tip save from Unai Simon.

But in the second half, when they were clearly dominating the game, the Blaugrana couldn't manage to create a single clear cut opportunity.

After bringing on Ivan Rakitic for Carles Alena at the start of the second half, the Blaugrana were dominating the home side in terms of possession but all that dominance didn't lead to anything significant.

Barcelona had almost 72 percent possession in the game, but of the 11 shots on goal, they only managed to have 2 on target and both those shots resulted in easy saves for the Bilbao goalkeeper.

It was clear that Barcelona were lacking creativity. With Lionel Messi injured, Ernesto Valverde needs to find the creative force in this team as for now, it seems like Barcelona's attack is still too dependent on the Argentine superstar.


#1 Aritz Aduriz's special goal and Bilbao's defensive resistance

Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga
Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga

Athletic Bilbao managed to pull off an upset on the first day of the new LaLiga season and the reason they could achieve that was due to their brilliant shape in defense.

In the first half, Bilbao were clearly the better team and they should have scored through Inaki Williams, but they didn't and that meant the home side had to be resilient in the second half.

Lining up in a 4-2-3-1, Bilbao gave absolutely no space to Barcelona's attackers and they kept them starved throughout the second half. Playing on the counter-attack, Bilbao scored very late in the game, thanks to their veteran Spanish striker, Aritz Aduriz.

Bilbao's right-back, Ander Capa found Aduriz in the box and the 38-year-old scored with a stunning overhead kick. What a moment it was for the Spaniard as he is going to retire at the end of this season!

All in all, it was a brilliant performance from the home side and they deserved this victory.

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Edited by Sudeshna Banerjee