Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao lock horns at La Cartuja in Seville this evening.
The sides are contesting the final of the Supercopa de Espana, a competition of heightened importance in this strange season.
Barcelona are looking to win the first title of the Ronald Koeman era while Athletic look rejuvenated under new coach Marcelino and will be hungry to lay down a marker.
The Blaugrana beat Real Sociedad on penalties during the week while Athletic beat Real Madrid 2-1. Both sides were in good form coming into the game.
Lionel Messi was a doubt, picking up a knock against Granada and missing the semi-final against La Real, but he started and was heavily involved in the opening goal.
The Argentine played the ball out wide for Jordi Alba, who centred well. The ball bounced around in the penalty area before falling to the feet of Antoine Griezmann, who finished with aplomb.
Almost immediately afterwards, however, Athletic hit back. Inaki Williams lifted a lovely ball into the box to find Oscar de Marcos, who had broken from the right side to score.
Athletic thought they’d taken the lead just shy of the hour mark, when Raul Garcia headed Iker Muniain‘s free-kick past Marc-Andre ter Stegen. A VAR review, however, ruled it offside.
NO GOAL after the VAR review shows it was offside! https://t.co/VJJJr64TXJ
— noobfcb (@noob_fcb) January 17, 2021
Barça incredibly lucky that VAR has found an offside position here. Raul Garcia's goal chalked off pic.twitter.com/kkAwzBdews
— Alex Truica (@AlexTruica) January 17, 2021
