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The Copa del Rey, title number 32 for Andrés Iniesta with FC Barcelon


Barça festival at the Wanda Metropolitano. Valverde’s team beat Sevilla 0-5 with total authority and secured the double, the eighth in its history. The Cup fell this Saturday and the League will do so shortly. In the most important game of the season, the Barça team did not fail and gave great joy to their fans with a football infinitely superior to that of Sevilla. A final without nerves. A luxury.


On 04/22/2018 at 7:20 PM CEST

David salinas @flytoapia


Luis Suarez Transfers Sevilla Leo Messi

In Sport English

Barcelona 5-0 Sevilla: Stunning show sweeps fourth cup running


Final Copa del Rey 2017-18




Sevilla FC

David Soria; Jesús Navas, Mercado, Lenglet, Escudero (c); N’Zonzi, Banega; Sarabia (Layún, m. 82), Franco Vázquez (Nolito, m. 86), Correa (Sandro, m. 46); and Muriel.

FC Barcelona

Cillessen; Sergi Roberto, Piqué, Umtiti, Jordi Alba; Coutinho (Dembélé, m. 82), Rakitic, Busquets (Paulinho, m. 76), Iniesta (c) (Denis Suárez, m. 88); Messi and Suárez.


0-1, Suarez (m. 14). With the right, by high, hunting a service from Coutinho after a play started by Cillessen. 0-2, Messi (m. 31). With his left foot, by high, after an assist from Jordi Alba with his heel. 0-3, Suarez (m. 40). He crosses with the right before the goalkeeper, from inside the area, after a vertical assist from Messi. 0-4, Iniesta (m. 52). With the right, from within the area, after combining with Messi and dribbling David Soria. 0-5, Coutinho (m. 69). Penalty. Lenglet’s hands inside the area. The Brazilian converted it with the right, deceiving the goalkeeper.


Jesús Gil Manzano (Extremadura). He showed yellow cards to Mercado (m. 34) for knocking down Suárez, to Escudero (m. 38) for grabbing Messi by the pants and knocking him down in a counter, to Iniesta (m. 67) for protesting a foul that was not whistled, Franco Vázquez and Busquets (m. 74) for arguing after a tough tackle from second to first.


Match corresponding to the final of the Copa del Rey 2017-18 played at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid before some 67,000 spectators.

Barça started the final with a winning script. He dominated the game, pressed up with intensity, anticipation and played the first minutes in Sevilla. With patience, touch, combinations and long possessions. Generating little, but carrying danger. The first opportunity was signed by Messi in a free kick (by Escudero on Suárez). Despite being very far away, the Argentine demanded the best of David Soria to get his left hand and give up the first corner of the game.

Playing like this, the fruits had to come. And they did it sooner rather than later. Cillessen, in the first ball he touched (minute 12 and 50 seconds) threw long for Coutinho, who controlled and went by speed towards the Andalusian frame. He reached the baseline and from there, after attracting and seating the goalkeeper and Escudero, he played with great quality for Suárez, who, on the wrong foot, caught the ball with his right and drove it to the back of the net.

Insufficient Andalusian reaction

Barça had the game where it wanted and continued to take advantage of the spaces left by the rival, who took a step forward to counter the scoreboard. In any case, Sevilla shook off the Barça pressure and began to approach Cillessen’s area with aerial balls and a shot from Correa that ended badly. Shortly after, in the 23rd minute, a center by Jesús Navas did not find a finisher.

However, when Sevilla pressed the most, Barça showed their teeth and their appetite to win the Copa del Rey. Thus, Iniesta sent a shot to the bottom of the crossbar in the 28th minute and, in the 31st, Messi scored the 0-2 with a left-footed shot after receiving an assist from Jordi Alba with his heel.

Suarez double

Immediately afterwards the linesman whistled Messi for a non-existent offside and, after two yellow cards, one to Mercado for lowering Suárez and another to Escudero for grabbing Messi when he was going towards the Andalusian frame – it could be red -, he arrived the 0-3 (minute 40) in a combination between Messi and Suárez that the Uruguayan crossed far from the reach of David Soria for the double. Barça reached the break after a perfect 45 minutes.

The joy of Luis Suárez after scoring the 0-1 | AFP

The second half started with Sevilla closer to the Barça area, but with a longer Barça to take advantage of the spaces left by Montella’s team, which left Correa in the booth and gave entry to the former Barça player Sandro.

The Barça, without hurry, went to his: to combine and to press. And in a robbery came the 0-4, the work of Iniesta after an assist from Messi. The captain had the luxury of dribbling the goalkeeper inside the area and scoring with his right. A beautifully made goal.

Very close to fifth

From there, Sevilla became small and remained without an answer. Barça, to his own, combining to generate danger. And created it. Suárez first and Umtiti later, on the same play, touched fifth in the 55th minute. And Busquets, in a shot from long distance in the 62nd, which the goalkeeper sent for a corner, too.

Cillessen, who intervened very little, did so decisively in the 64th minute to avoid Sevilla’s first goal. The Dutchman kicked out a shot by Sandro in an Andalusian counter.

…And the ‘little hand’ arrived

Valverde’s team, who did what they wanted and played with total authority, reached the ‘little hand’ in the 69th minute. Lenglet touched the ball with his right arm inside the area and, despite following the play and scoring Coutinho, the referee whistled penalty. Coutinho himself, after Messi gave him the pitch, raised the fifth.

Messi gives the goal to Coutinho

The Copa del Rey, title number 32 of Andrés Iniesta with FC Barcelona

The game had some outbreaks of toughness, but there it stayed. It was languishing to the end. With a Sevilla in search of the goal of honor and a Barça that still enjoyed more opportunities to score. Iniesta was replaced by Denis and applauded. He left excited. It was his last ending. The tears he shed on the bench so assured. In the end, 0-5 and poker of consecutive Cup titles for Barça, something that had not been seen since 1933.

Fernando Gago had a class available to very few on the pitch (we spoke in the past tense because he just announced his retirement). Nicknamed at the time as the ‘new Redondo’, this fine, elegant midfielder landed very young in Madrid and that poster ended up eating him away. That and some injuries that have weighed him down throughout his career.


On 11/15/2020 at 08:02 CET


Leo Messi

He has ended up being forced to say goodbye with 34 years in Boca Juniors, the club of his loves. Taking stock of his career, Fernando alluded to his partner and friend Leo Messi, whom he tried for years to supply balls in the Argentine team.

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"They are many years of friendship and playing football. We shared the way of watching football and that allowed me to understand it. If he was standing in the middle of the court it was because he was not comfortable. He knew he shouldn’t be given it. If he was standing it was because he was looking for space and needed and needed two more passes to generate movements. I always said that you should not give him the ball at all times and less with a staggered mark". 

Former FC Barcelona manager Javier Bordas, who was in charge of the negotiations that the Blaugrana club held in 2019 to try to sign the Brazilian Neymar, revealed the ins and outs of those conversations and the club’s forward departure in 2017 to sign for him PSG.


On at 20:46 CET


Neymar da Silva Jr.

In Sport English

Bordas: We were so close Neymar thought he was coming

In an interview with the newspaper ‘Mundo Deportivo’, Bordas made it clear at Barcelona that he took Neymar’s signing very seriously. "Yes, yes, we were serious. I went personally and we really wanted him to come, we tried in every possible way. We were very close. We got PSG to make us an offer when they never accepted anything for Verratti, or Marquinhos, or Thiago Silva … It is not a selling club and take away the figure …"

The former Blaugrana manager confirmed that the operation was broken for economic reasons. "We were so close that Neymar thought he was coming, me too, he was ready. There was a difference of money that his father put, but the clubs did not agree to the hour to close the operation. But we were very close to bringing it, it was our idea", he stressed.

money, key

Bordas denied that Barcelona did not do everything possible at that time to sign Neymar, as Messi doubted in an interview with SPORT. "I think that Messi still has the aftertaste that he could have brought and was not brought. But what happened to the virus has already been seen. We still make that economic effort and now we would be worse off. Or maybe it comes, you don’t have to fire Valverde, or sign Braithwaite in winter and it was one thing for the other …"

And argued that "In football there are times when you have to get it right and Neymar was key, but the financial part of the club was worried. It was an issue in the economic area. They put a cap on and you couldn’t go beyond there. Some players proposed to postpone part of their salary so that Neymar could return. Although all the salary had to be lowered enough to fit the level of Fair Play and the League.