A managerless Eibar were defeated 3-0 by Barcelona at the Camp Nou
With their head coach José Luis Mendilibar suspended due to a sending-off, Eibar fell to 3-0 loss to Barcelona, who improved their record against the Basque club. Philippe Coutinho made his first start since the draw against Tottenham in the final Champions League group game.
The match started off as a tough fight, with very few prolonged spells of possession for both sides. But Barça broke the deadlock in the 19th minute, with Luis Suárez giving a glorious display of his clinical finishing and Coutinho grabbing the assist.
It was a wonderful team move supplemented by some delightful first-touch football. The move was started by Arthur, and the ball landed at Coutinho’s feet via Sergio Busquets. Coutinho then exchanged a one-two with Luis Suárez, who sidefooted it into the bottom right corner.
The side were surprisingly complacent, with Gerard Piqué even receiving stern instructions from Ernesto Valverde early in the game after Eibar were pressing hard. But in the first-half, the Armagiñak were mostly ineffective, and highly defensive in their approach.
But Barça extended their lead 8 minutes after the beginning of the second-half. The Liverpool connection of Luis Suárez and Philippe Coutinho worked wonders yet again, with Lionel Messi found in space by ‘El Pistolero’.
Messi took a few touches to set himself and finding the right angle before firing past Asier Riesgo into the bottom left corner to score his 400th La Liga goal. The following minutes till the hour-mark showed why Barcelona is one of the best teams in the world, and was a treat to watch.
The attacking trident, constituting Lionel Messi, Philippe Coutinho and Luis Suárez, showed why their combined market value is €360 million. The trio weaved their way through the Eibar defence with fantastic skills, awe-inspiring movement and overall.
Messi and Suárez came very close, but missed from almost point-blank range. But they could not hold on for much longer. In the 59th minute, Ivan Rakitić released Sergi Roberto on the right flank. The 26-year old Spain international won a throw and quickly put Suárez through on goal.
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The 32-year old Uruguayan centre-forward worked his way into the box, and sold the goalkeeper with a little dummy before completing his brace with a brilliant finish with the outside of his right boot into the bottom left corner.
Ernesto Valverde piled on more attackers as the game progressed to take the game to Eibar. It worked, as they managed just 2 shots on target the entire match, none of which caused any sorts of problems for Marc-André ter Stegen.
Luis Suárez was easily the man-of-the-match, as ‘El Pistolero’ stepped it up following the departure of Munir and the beginning of the search for a replacement. He showed that he still has it, and the management does not need to worry about his successor anytime soon.
Philippe Coutinho was also very good, and performed confidently. He wowed the Camp Nou with some ingenious tricks, including various nutmegs. Apart from those 6 minutes, Messi was relatively quiet. But he did more in that span of time than most players do in 90 minutes.
This should give Barça some nice momentum going into the second leg of the last 16 of the Copa del Rey, especially after a relaxed and cool 3-0 victory in front of Andrés Iniesta and Éric Abidal.