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Barcelona were unceremoniously dumped out of the Copa del Rey, with Athletic Bilbao posting a 1-0 victory over them at the Estadio San Mames.
Both teams are the two most successful sides in Copa del Rey history, with Athletic Bilbao's 23 triumphs second only to the 24 managed by Barcelona and given the intense rivalry between the two sides, it came as no surprise that the game was played at a high intensity throughout.
No fewer than five yellow cards were issued in the first half alone, with referee Juan Martinez struggling to keep control of the game. Nelson Semedo, Lionel Messi, Jordi Alba, and even coach Quique Setien were all issued warnings in the first half, while Yeray Alvarez also saw yellow for the home side.
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For all of the physicality deployed in the game, the match was painfully devoid of real quality which was a shame considering the abundance of attacking talent on display and just when it seemed like we would need extra time to settle the contest, Inaki Williams was on hand to head home a cross by Ibai Gomez to send the Basque outfit into the semifinal.
Barcelona would now turn their attention to their league clash with Real Betis this weekend, while Bilbao would square off with Real Sociedad in the Basque derby.
In this piece, we shall be highlighting five talking points from the Copa del Rey clash at San Mames.
#5 Lightning strikes twice for Barcelona
Barcelona begun their LaLiga title defence with a Friday night clash against Athletic Bilbao on matchday one and despite going into the match without the services of captain Lionel Messi, the game saw summer signing Antoine Griezmann make his debut and the Blaugrana were expected to triumph in the fixture.
Further tragedy came as Luis Suarez limped out of the fixture and the visitors struggled to create much in the game.
It was a similar situation last night at San Mames, with Barcelona lacking in their usual creativity and in further identical scenes to that August night, they came undone with a last-gasp winner for the home side.
On that occasion, Aritz Aduriz came off the bench to put them to the sword with an exquisite bicycle kick, while Inaki Williams was the protagonist on this occasion with a well-taken headed goal in injury time.
#4 Barcelona's record-breaking Copa del Rey run comes to an end
As already indicated, Barcelona are the most successful side in the history of the Copa del Rey and most of their success has been down to their performance in the competition in recent years.
They equaled Athletic Bilbao's record of four successive wins with their emphatic 5-0 triumph over Sevilla in 2018 but could not own the record for themselves, as they fell to a rather surprising 2-1 defeat to Valencia in the final last year.
However, in getting to the showpiece event last season, Barcelona extended their record of qualifying for six consecutive finals and they would have been looking to make it seven finals in a row with another appearance in May this year.
However, Athletic Bilbao had other plans and ended their tournament at the quarterfinal stage, ensuring that a Copa del Rey final would be contested without the presence of Barcelona for the first time since 2013.
#3 More questions to be asked of Setien
The year started poorly for Barcelona, with a 3-2 loss to Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup proving to be the last straw for Ernesto Valverde as manager.
The 55-year-old was sacked soon after that and in his stead, the club turned to former Real Betis coach Quique Setien, appointing him on a two-and-half year contract.
His appointment generated mixed reactions, with his only selling point being that he played attractive football while acting as manager of Los Verdiblancos and as the 60-year-old himself admitted, he was surprised to receive the call.
Life has not gone according to plan for him at Camp Nou and he has already lost two of his first six matches in charge of the Catalans, while his side struggled even in victory against minnow like Ibiza, Granada, and, Levante, and Leganes.
With all due respect to the quartet, none of them are exactly in the upper echelons of Spanish football and the fact that Barcelona were unconvincing in their victories over them was a source of discontent among fans.
The two reasonably quality opposition the Blaugrana have faced under Setien have seen them lose, with this latest setback to Bilbao coming after another away loss to Valencia in the league.
Quique Setien stated that he was very honoured to have the job of coaching the best player in the world but if he does not oversee a quick turn of results, he would be out of a job as quickly as he got it.
#2 More upset recorded in the Copa del Rey
Haeding into this season, a lot of radical changes were made to the Copa del Rey, with the chief two being the expansion of the tournament to include more lower division and amateur teams, as well as the scrapping of the two-legged ties until the semifinal.
Home advantage was also given to the lower ranked sides and the fallback to this was that fans of unheralded clubs in small locales got the chance to see mega superstars in flesh and blood in their stadiums.
It is expected that the long tradition of the Copa del Rey being dominated by the bigger sides would end and more 'giant killings' - as is the case in the FA Cup - would be recorded and while seven of the eight quarterfinalists were 'big clubs' from LaLiga, this season's Copa del Rey has had its own fair share of upsets.
Perhaps the biggest of the earlier stages came when unfancied Cultural Leonesa knocked out heavyweights Atletico Madrid in the round-of-32, while UD Ibiza also ran Barcelona ragged at the same stage.
Segunda side CD Mirandes knocked out Sevilla in the round-of-16 to book their place as the only non-LaLiga side in the last eight and they continued their good run by eliminating high-flying Villarreal with a 2-1 victory.
The remaining ties all involved LaLiga sides but crucially, it saw the lower ranked side progress at the expense of their more illustrious opponents.
Granada kicked things off by knocking out defending champions Valencia 2-1 courtsey a brace by former Los Che Roberto Soldado, while Real Sociedad also ended Real Madrid's 21-game unbeaten run with a 4-3 win at Santiago Bernabeu.
Athletic Bilbao's win over Barcelona means that none of the four semifinalists have won the Copa del Rey since 1986 and the alteration of the competition is already reaping dividends.
#1 Barcelona's season threatening to unravel
The season started poorly enough for Barcelona, with just two wins picked up from their opening five LaLiga fixtures but the return to full fitness of captain Lionel Messi helped steady the ship and the Catalans ended last year on a high, topping both LaLiga and their Champions League group.
However, things have once again gone south and recent disappointing results have seen them relinquish top spot in the league to Real Madrid as well as the termination of Ernesto Valverde's contract.
The latter was something that reportedly did not sit well with a number of players and unconfirmed reports suggest that two players (Lionel Messi and Ter Stegen) flared up in a confrontation on the training ground.
In the aftermath of Valverde's sack, the Barcelona players failed to have their customary pre-game huddle where one of the top players gives their final peptalk and all this pointed to signs of a divided dressing room.
Some ill-advised comments by Director of Football Eric Abidal during an interview this week saw Lionel Messi take to Instagram to address his former teammate and call him out in what was a major deviation from the normally taciturn Argentine international.
Added to this is the fact that Messi has a clause in his contract that could see him leave for free this summer and reports have started linking him with a shock move to Manchester City in the Premier League.
Furthermore, the club were rocked with the news of long-term injuries to Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele but their indecisiveness in the winter window means that they would end the season with Antoine Griezmann and Lionel Messi as the only established forwards in the first-team.
The general feeler from the Barcelona camp is that they are a house in disarray from boardroom to the training ground and it is no surprise that results on the field have been poor and they would do well to get their house in order to avoid ending the season in calamity.
