For the very first time in the past decade, Barcelona lost their opening game of the Spanish League on Friday night while playing against Athletic Bilbao. Barcelona was not able to fulfill the absence of Messi with Antoine Griezmann as they lost the game by 1-0.
Aritz Aduriz, the veteran stirrer from Athletic Bilbao, who came off the bench during the 88th minute of the game, scored a splendid goal with his overhead kick. His goal was the only one of the night which handed Barcelona their first-ever loss in the past 10 years. As they had won 10 opening league matches in a row.
Griezmann was the biggest offseason signing carried out by Barcelona but unfortunately, he was held scoreless for the entire night of his debut match. He was signed in by Barcelona for a contract of 133 million dollars from Barcelona’s rival Atlético Madrid.
The only chance that the French player had during the game came in the final moments of the game which he missed.
Griezmann said, “The ball simply did not go in and at the end, this is what matters the most. We need to keep on working hard to improve ourselves and to rebound from this position as soon as we can.”
Messi was not beside Griezmann due to the star player of Argentina was taking care of his right calf injury. Griezmann was also not able to count on for the help from Luis Suárez after he was replaced during the first half of the game due to a muscle injury.
Philippe Coutinho was also not playing in this game due to him being on a pending move to the Bayern Munich for being on loan.
Gerard Pique, the defender of Barcelona said, “We were not ourselves tonight. We were coming off the preseason and have a lot of new players among us. This will still be better for us to go forward like losing now is better than losing in the end.”
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