Barcelona experienced their first taste of defeat this season yesterday when they were beaten 3-1 by Sevilla in the first leg of the Spanish Supercup. Playing infront of their home crowd at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium, Sevilla were cruising to victory in the 73rd minute when Freddie Kanoute put the home team in the lead for the first time.
Another Kanoute goal 10 minutes later put the game beyond Barcelona’s reach and provided the red and whites with a good two goal advantage ahead of their return fixture in the Nou camp in a weeks time.
Are these signs that Barcelona could be in for a hard season? I think so, they almost lost the league to Madrid last year with both sides fighting down to the final day of fixtures for a winner to be crowned.
The Blaugrana definitely have a difficult task ahead of them as cutting down the 2 goal deficit will not be an easy task especially against a side like Sevilla. Barcelona went ahead in the 20th minute of the match when Zlatan Ibrahimovic slotted the ball past Andres Palop to put the champions in the lead.
It looked as if Barcelona were going to take over from where they left off last season as they went into the break with their slim but comfortable margin. Luis Fabiano however restored parity on the stroke of the hour after he picked up a perfect cross from new signing Luca Cigarini to fire the ball into the back of the net.
Sevilla’s lanky striker Freddie Kanoute then doubled their lead 13 minutes later after some neat work from Alvaro Negrodo. It was not long before Kanoute grabbed his second of the night and third for Sevilla with only 7 minutes of normal time left to play.
Barcelona rested most of their star players with Guardiola playing only Ibrahimovic and Alves from the senior team with the rest of the players being drawn from the reserves and youth teams as opposed to Sevilla who played a near full strength squad. Messi however replaced the Swede in the early stages of the second half. A substitution that many had waited for.
These two different approaches made all the difference at the end of the night as Sevilla emerged victorious with a convincing win to boot. Barcelona now have a week to change their strategy and win a match that seems almost out of their reach. Does this loss have any major implications for the champions, i want to believe it does however, the Catalans are always full of surprises.
Photo credit: from superleague formula:…
