Barcelona vs Athletic Club, Spanish Supercup: Final Score 1-1 as Bilbao win Supercopa

The Camp Nou was full, there was a redemption feeling in the air, but Barcelona ended up falling short, and the dream of a second sextuple is over. After another night of poor creativity, the Blaugrana ran into another brick wall of a defense, and Athletic Bilbao is the winner of the 2015 Spanish Supercup with a 5-1 aggregate result. Barça's performance was better than Friday's at San Mamés, but the deficit was just too big to overcome.

FIRST HALF

When Gerard Piqué hit the post in the seventh minute, it looked like Barça would turn this into manslaughter; the team looked sharp, passed the ball well and seemed ready to create plenty of scoring chances. But as time went on, and as Athletic's defense got tighter and tighter, the Blaugrana team got nervous, and instead of patiently building up plays, it started playing too much of a direct game, which did not help.

Athletic did the right things, closing up spaces and pressing high up the pitch in certain instances, which led to the Basques biggest chance of the half, when Eraso missed a clear chance one-on-one against goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.

When it seemed like the first half was going to end without a goal, Barça got their hopes up. After another desperate cross to the box, the ball fell to Luis Suárez, who calmly gave it to Lionel Messi with a beautiful chest pass, and the Argentine did not waste the chance, giving the Blaugranes a 1-0 lead at halftime.

SECOND HALF

The last thing the Blaugrana needed was a dumb play that made things worse. It happened, when Gerard Piqué got angry about a simple offside call against him, insulted the assistant referee and got sent off. With a defender down, Luis Enrique was forced to reshuffle his back-line and tried to put his young strikers Sandro and Munir, but it was not enough to do any harm to a firmly established Bilbao defense.

Time was ticking, the Catalan giants weren't able to create chances, and the knockout punch came with the star of the Supercup. Aritz Aduriz was there again to score his fourth goal in the tie, guaranteeing the trophy to Los Leones. In the end, an emphatic 5-1 aggregate win for a team that was perfect throughout the entire 180 minutes. For Barça, the sextuple is out of reach, and the new campaign does not start that well.

Barcelona: Bravo; Alves, Piqué, Mascherano, Mathieu; Busquets, Rakitic (Sandro), Iniesta; Messi, Suárez, Pedro (Munir)

Goal:  Messi (43')

Athletic Club: Iraizoz; Bóveda, Etxeita (Elustondo), Laporte, Balenziaga; Gurpegi, Beñat (Mikel Rico); De Marcos, Eraso, Susaeta; Aduriz (Kike Sola)

Goal: Aduriz (74')

Source: Renato Goncalves http://ift.tt/1JneiEo