After winning the La Liga by one point their eyes were set on adding the Kings Cup but their opponents Sevilla fresh from their Europa Triumph over Liverpool had other ideas. They themselves were looking to do a double this season and were in fact very close only for Barcelona to withstand the pressure and a pinch of Messi’s magic to turn the tides in their favor winning the cup 2-0 in the extra time.
The Match
It can be said that the match turned out to be for Sevilla to lose. Sevilla played with a extra man advantage for good 60 minutes of match but were not able to break the deadlock coming close on number of occasions.
The first action of the match was when the French Kevin Gameiro was brought down when Mascherano grabbed his shirt on the edge of the box, being clear on the goal the referee had no hesitation but to send off the Argentinian.
The subsequent free kick from just outside the box from Eric banega was well saved by Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Around the 60th minute mark Barcelona further suffered a setback as the prolific Uruguayan Luiz Suarez, Barcelona top scorer for the season, had to forced off the field after suffering a hamstring injury. In the mix of all this Sevilla came close to taking the lead, only for the post to deny Banega’s strike.
Soon from being a hero Banega turned into a villain, as he tripped Neymar near the box and was sent off balancing the tie with both teams now down to 10 men heading into the extra time.
For Barcelona who had been resolute against the 11 men this provided them an opportunity to express themselves and Messi was the center of all this. In the 97th minute he picked out a neat lofted pass for Jordi Alba the fire home.
The deadlock was finally broken and Sevilla instead of making a comeback ended up sulking under the pressure and were further reduced to 9 men after Carrico was shown two yellow cards, the first for a foul on Messi and the second for arguing about it summing up the frustration that had set in for the team.
Barcelona added another consolation goal in the 120th minute courtesy of a Messi and Neymar link up.
Barcelona completed a hard fought double and will hope to continue with the form next year. But for a club like Barcelona winning one or two trophy in a year is just not enough. After winning a treble last season for fans and players alike anything less than that would be termed as failure. Barcelona’s knockout from the Champions League was such a case but they ensured that they didn’t lose any further and registered wins to retain 2 of the 3 trophies they won last year.