FC Barcelona 1-1 Eibar: Out of luck

The final game of 2020 against Eibar was played without captain, Lionel Messi, though the blaugranes began on the front foot in his absence, earning an early corner which led to a penalty after a VAR check. Unfortunately, Martin Braithwaite directed his spot-kick just wide.

Three corners in succession for the visitors before the quarter hour was as good as it got for them in the first-half, Barça not taking long to regain control of the game with a flowing, passing game that was easy on the eye.

Braithwaite looked to have redeemed himself and given Ronald Koeman’s side the lead on 24 minutes with a fine finish, but VAR again intervened and ruled it out by the most miniscule of offside decisions.

Identical

An almost identical move on 32 saw the Dane inches away from finally giving Barça the lead, before Marc-André ter Stegen was called into action for the first time, palming away a long-range free-kick. The half ended as it had begun with the hosts on the attack, Antoine Griezmann the latest to go close to scoring.

Second-half substitute, Ousmane Dembélé, was quickly into the action with a strike on goal as the pattern continued after the break, however, it would be Eibar that opened the scoring on 57 when an error from Ronald Araujo gave Kike García a free run in on goal.

Level

Despite going behind, the Catalans still took the game to their opponents, and just after the introductions of Philippe Coutinho and Trincão, a wonderful piece of play down the left ended with Junior Firpo finding Dembélé to bring Barça level with 24 minutes still left to play.

It was from this point that the game began to open up, spaces being created as players tired and the play much more expansive from both sides. Coutinho and Pedri both had wonderful chances to win the match within a minute of each other late on, with Trincão’s injury-time shot agonisingly wide as luck deserted them all on the night.