Barcelona failed to win for the third time in four games ahead of the Clasico after a dour 1-1 draw with third-tier Hercules in the Copa del Rey on Wednesday.
A predictably under-strength Barca featured three debutants in B trio Borja Lopez, Carles Alena and Alex Carbonell, plus the exiled Aleix Vidal, but paperwork trouble ruled out Marlon.
Paco Alcacer was leading the Catalans’ line with plenty to prove, having failed to score for the club in his first seven appearances, and he hit an early free kick hard and low, which made its way through Hercules’ wall but not into Ivan Buigues’ bottom-right corner.
For all of Barca’s recent struggles, however, their B team had beaten Hercules 3-1 in Segunda B at the start of the season and built a 10-point lead on the Valencians, who were a La Liga team just five years ago.
Still, Jose Gaspar proved the most dangerous man on the pitch, the midfielder first getting in behind down the right but lacking the composure to take on Jasper Cillessen, instead dragging a shot straight at the goalkeeper.
He then won the beating of his opponents in the Barca box, but like before, he hesitated to shoot and his effort eventually deflected off Samuel Umtiti.
Alcacer, meanwhile, ran onto Vidal’s long pass down the right, but his sliding cross-cum-shot was deflected away from goal by Buigues.
Despite his side looking so average, even at the best of times, Luis Enrique elected to stay in his dugout, preferring for his assistant Juan Carlos Unzue to take charge.
His disinterested demeanour seemed to feed into his players as a cross somehow fell to David Mainz at Cillessen’s back post, with Vidal failing to block the delivery and Lucas Digne unable to stop it from reaching the striker, who bundled it home.
Barca did respond six minutes later through La Masia graduate Alena, the young debutant unleashing a rocket past Buigues and into his bottom-right corner, but they failed to push on from that.
Indeed, Enrique’s ‘keepy-uppy’ with his head and a free header from Andre Gomes that went straight at the Hercules goalkeeper was as good as it got for the Catalans, who similarly fired blanks against Villanovense at the same stage last season.
Hercules 1-1 Barcelona
Mainz 52 (H) Alena 58 (B)
Hercules: Buigues; Pena, Rojas, Dalmau, Roman, Gaspar (Minano 71), Espinosa, Omgba, Ingles, Salinas (Chechu 71), Mainz (Berrocal 79)
Barcelona: Cillessen; Vidal, Borja, Umtiti (Nili 69), Digne; Denis, Alena (Cardona 76), Rafinha; Carbonell (Gomes 69), Alcacer, Arda
