Real Sociedad v FC Barcelona: Through to the semifinals (1-5)

The Barça women’s team got off to the perfect start in the Copa de la Reina with a 5-1 defeat of Real Sociedad at the RFEF grounds in Madrid.

Míriam and Alexia Putellas scored twice in a minute in the first half and a brace from Bárbara and a second from Alexia completed the job in the second half, setting up an intriguing semi-final either against league champions Athletic Bilbao or another tough prospect in Levante.

Aside from the result, the most positive aspect from Saturday’s performance was that the women are clearly going into this tournament in fine form and are fully committed to collecting a trophy after excellent campaigns in the Champions League and domestic Liga went unrewarded.

It was a tight game until the floodgates opened, with Nahikari Garcia coming very close on two occasions to putting the Basques into an early lead. But it was a fine assist from Alexia from the left to set up Míriam that finally broke the deadlock on the half hour. And straight from the restart an Olga Garcia shot rebounded off Real keeper Quiñones, and Alexia was there to sweep up the second for FCB.

The second half commenced with Nahikari rounding Sandra Paños brilliantly to get Real Sociedad back to within one goal. But that did nothing to halt the Catalan charge and following a couple of close chances substitute Bárbara made it 3-1.

As the game drew a close it became evident that Real were running out of the time needed to come back from two down. Their heads dropped and Bárbara was able to notch a fourth off an Aitana assist with just two minutes to go and Alexia finished off the job in injury time.

An impressive 5-1 win will see Barça’s confidence raging as they go into the semi-finals.