Supercopa de España: Athletic Bilbao 4-0 FC Barcelona: Player Ratings

A detailed, player-by-player breakdown of Barcelona's embarrassing loss to against Athletic.

Marc-Andre ter Stegen

3.3

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 55 Passes: 39 Pass Accuracy: 77% Shots Faced: 4 Saves Made: 0 Clearances: 0 Bostjan says: 4.0 Ter Stegen couldn't have wished for a worse start to the season in which he wanted to dethrone Claudio Bravo in La Liga. Ter Stegen faced four shots and gave up four goals, including making the terrible mistake leading to the opening goal. The German's passing was far below expectations and he even struggled in the air game, where he is usually very solid, whiffing on a cross in the 33rd that could've easily led to yet another goal in his net.

Dani Alves

3.6

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 101 Passes: 81 Pass Accuracy: 93% Key Passes: 1 Turnovers: 3 Tackles: 2 Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Clearances: 5 Fouls: 1 Interceptions: 2 Bostjan says: 3.0 Arguably the biggest culprit of the embarrassing Barcelona loss, Alves was directly involved in three goals that Barcelona conceded. On the second he defended lackadaisically to let Sabin send a great cross past him for the assist, on the third he "cleared" the ball directly to the waiting Aritz Aduriz and on the fourth he moronically brought down a player 15 yards away from the ball to give up a penalty kick. It's really hard to remember any good plays he made amid the above disaster.

Marc Bartra

3.4

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 100 Passes: 91 Pass Accuracy: 87% Tackles: 2 Interceptions: 1 Clearances: 3 Aerial Duels Won: 2 Bostjan says: 4.0 Bartra wasn't as bad as he was in the European Super Cup, but there's a long way to go for him to win back the trust he lost in these two games. He made a pair of excellent tackles, but he struggled in the air game, where he's normally a force, winning only 25% of duels, and his positioning, and of the player named directly below, allowed Atheltic too much space to operate. On a couple of plays Bartra also reacted poorly and those are the type of mistakes that will have to be eradicated if he wants to become a first choice center-back.

Thomas Vermaelen

4.5

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 101 Passes: 90 Pass Accuracy: 90% Tackles: 0 Interceptions: 1 Clearances: 4 Aerial Duels Won: 5 Fouls: 2 Bostjan says: 4.0 Vermaelen struggled similarly bad as Bartra did in terms of positioning and he too looked rusty when reading the play on some occasions. Where Vermaelen shone was in the air, winning by far the most duels of any player on the pitch, apart from Aduriz who tormented every single player that was tasked with covering him at any given moment.. It was an encouraging sign that the Belgian played the full 90 minutes, but his play left much to be desired.

Adriano Correia

3.4

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 88 Passes: 69 Pass Accuracy: 90% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Tackles: 3 Interceptions: 2 Clearances: 2 Key Passes: 1 Turnovers: 3 Bostjan says: 3.0 The fact that Adriano is still on this team and is rumored to be signing a new contract in the near future is worrying as he's taking away valuable playing time from youngsters in the B team while playing worse than any one of the kids would. Looking purely statistically you could make a case that the Brazilian had a decent game but he didn't. Oftentimes he was careless with the ball and looked out of position on too many plays, allowing much traffic past him. And apart from one or two attacking plays he brought little in terms of offense.

Javier Mascherano

4.5

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 96 Passes: 84 Pass Accuracy: 93% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Tackles: 6 Interceptions: 3 Clearances: 2 Turnovers: 0 Aerial Duels Won: 1 Key Passes: 0 Fouls Won: 2 Sam says: 6.0 Probably the best player of the midfield three, but that isn't saying much in this game. Mascherano’s job was to sniff out any Athletic attacks before they started but he struggled throughout and the defence was continually left exposed. He made a fair amount of tackles and interceptions but it wasn’t enough. One positive was his passing was very good, making 84 with a success rate of 93%.

Sergi Roberto

3.5

Minutes played: 59 Touches: 60 Passes: 47 Pass Accuracy: 87% Shots/Shots on Target: 1/1 Turnovers: 5 Key Passes: 1 Successful Dribbles: 1 Tackles: 2 Sam says: 5.5 Another game in which Roberto just didn’t look convincing. Filling the rather large boots of Andrés Iniesta and Ivan Rakitić, there is always a weight on the midfield and Roberto failed to live up to that. He never really penetrated the Bilbao midfield and he couldn't link up with any other outfield player.

Rafinha

3.9

Minutes played: 51 Touches: 37 Passes: 27 Pass Accuracy: 89% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Fouls Won: 0 Turnovers: 8 Successful Dribbles: 0 Key Passes: 0 Tackles: 0 Sam says: 5.0 Rafinha was almost non-existent in this game as he went missing for large portions of the game. He routinely found himself outmaneuvered by Bilbao and struggled to have any impact on the game. He dint manage a shot, or over 30 passes and he was quickly given the chop just after 50 minutes.

Luis Suarez

5.3

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 44 Passes: 34 Pass Accuracy: 65% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Turnovers: 2 Successful Dribbles: 2 Key Passes: 1 Fouls Won: 1 Clearances: 1 Sonia says: 7.0 This match was not Suárez's best game, though understandably so. He was dead tired and needed a rest, as he had yet to miss any time. He played very high up for much of the match, but he at least tried to attack. He ran hard, which is always good, but was sloppy with lots of poor decisions. Unfortunately, the midfield failed him and did not get him the ball often enough - and of course, without the ball, he cannot be threatening. Although ultimately Suárez was unable to help the team out and score, he gets points for trying.

Lionel Messi

5.9

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 72 Passes: 49 Pass Accuracy: 80% Shots/Shots on Target: 5/3 Fouls Won: 4 Successful Dribbles: 3 Key Passes: 0 Turnovers: 2 Clearances: 1 Sonia says: 7.0 Unfortunately, none of the GOAT's usual magic could help out the team. He was forced to drop deep because of the midfield's incompetence, and was unable to go forward and score. Messi was often at walking pace, and understandably so, as Athletic Bilbao's defence was bullying him and he was playing with not enough rest. There were at least three players marking Messi at any given point in time, and a midfield without Rakitić and Iniesta couldn't feed him the ball. Despite the rarity of Messi actually getting the ball, his sharpness on it was still visible when he did - Barça's only shot on target for the entire first half came from a Messi free kick. Messi couldn't work his magic, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.

Pedro

5.1

Minutes played: 70 Touches: 38 Passes: 29 Pass Accuracy: 90% Shots/Shots on Target: 1/0 Tackles: 1 Key Passes: 1 Successful Dribbles: 0 Turnovers: 5 Sonia says: 6.5 Ahh, Pedro. On the one hand, his performance was underwhelming and he is better as a super sub than he is a starter. He got a yellow card that will not help his case to stay with the club. On the other hand, the other players on the pitch were hardly any better. Yes, Pedro was piss poor, but the others were often times worse. As one of the more dangerous and creative players on the pitch, he definitely does not deserve to be bashed. Pedro may not have gotten any results and may not have scored a game-winner like he did last match, but he was still better than almost everyone else, actually carried something vaguely resembling a threat, and put some effort in, so he gets his points for trying.

Andres Iniesta	5.2
Minutes played: 39 Touches: 39 Passes: 32 Pass Accuracy: 91% Tackles: 1 Bostjan says: 5.0 Bringing Iniesta in with roughly 40 minutes left to play had little to no effect for Barcelona as not even a master of pulling the strings like Iniesta couldn't connect the disjointed team.

Ivan Rakitić	5.1
Minutes played: 31 Touches: 33 Passes: 29 Pass Accuracy: 83% Key Passes: 0 Bostjan says: 5.0 Similarly to Iniesta, Rakitić couldn't do much in his time on the pitch. In fact, his impact was arguably even smaller as the demoralized team around him was beyond saving at that point.

Sandro Ramirez	4.1
Minutes played: 20 Touches: 12 Passes: 10 Pass Accuracy: 100% Key Passes: 1 Bostjan says: 5.0 Sandro brought some energy to the Barcelona attack and was on a couple of occasions in the thick of it, but he couldn't produce heroics similar to those against Villarreal last season.

The Team

3.8

Passes: 740 Pass Accuracy: 87% Shots/Shots on Target: 8/4 Tackles: 17 Aerial Battles Won: 48% Fouls Won/Committed: 21/12 Sonia says: 5.0 The team's performance was absolutely tragic - but i suppose that this could have been predicted to some extent by the poor choice of line-up by the coach. Although no one expected a result quite this bad, certainly culés knew the match would not be an easy one and most expected a draw or a loss with a smaller margin. As it turned out, on Friday, the forwards didn't have their spark, the midfield was poor in every way imaginable, the defence did not defend, and the goalkeeper could not keep the ball out of the net. The midfield could not keep possession and did not get the ball forward, and the entire team did not do well against Athletic's pressing. And of course, Messi and Suárez cannot get the ball in the goal if they don't get the ball. The defence, meanwhile, made dumb moves, could not keep Athletic's players away from goal, and conceded a few goals too many. For the second leg at home for the Supercopa there's SOME hope - because it's Barça at the Camp Nou, and if any team can come back from a 4-0 loss it's this one - but that's really all we have. The sextuple has almost certainly been lost, unfortunately, and all we can do is learn from this match and hope that the same mistakes aren't made in a La Liga or UCL match, when it matters the most.

Luis Enrique	3.7
Bostjan says: 3.0 This was like the Real Sociedad game from last season all over again. Lucho's tactical plan was off as he seems to think that he can rely on the forwards to get results while still rotating the midfield and defence and using backup players, and what transpired on the pitch proved that this definitely was not the case.

MOTM - Nobody	57%
Bostjan says: Nobody Unsurprisingly, 57% of the voters, me included, thought that nobody deserved to be named man of the match in this one. Those that decided that that somebody should indeed win the award, overwhelmingly opted for Messi, with 23%. Pedro finished the voting in third with 6%.

Source: Bostjan Cernensek http://ift.tt/1MxqFyk