Troubled To Overcome Cornella, Barcelona Strolled Into The Last 16 Of The Copa Del Rey
JAKARTA - Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao are the last two teams to complete the list of participants in the last 16 of the Copa del Rey, after both of them won over the third strata team in the last 32 match on Thursday local time (Friday WIB).
Barcelona, who visit another Catalunya team, Cornella, had to go through extra time to win 2-0 over the third tier team at the Nou Camp Municipal Stadium.
According to Antara, Ronald Koeman's team actually had many good opportunities to win the match in normal time, but all of them failed to produce results, including the two penalty kicks they got.
The first penalty was earned in the 39th minute, executed by Miralem Pjanic but goalkeeper Ramon Juan made a brilliant save to prevent Barcelona from taking the lead.
Then in the 80th minute, Barcelona also received another penalty and this time Pjanic, who realized his failure, gave Ousmane Dembele the opportunity to be the executioner.
Unlucky for Dembele, Ramon again performed brilliantly to read the direction of the ball and ward off the French player's penalty execution.
In the final five minutes of normal time, Ramon made another save on Pjanic's shot to force extra-time into play.
Two minutes into stoppage time Dembele paid off his failure by scoring to beat Ramon and put Barcelona ahead over Cornella.
Cornella's hard work had to end tragically as in the 118th minute Estelles received a second yellow card and at the end of extra time Martin Braithwaite tricked Ramon in a one-on-one situation to seal a 2-0 win for Barcelona.
In another early match, Bilbao came from behind to beat Ibiza 2-1 at the Municipal de Can Mises Stadium.
Ibiza's third-tier team was able to steal the lead in the 12th minute when Javi Perez's long-range shot failed to be anticipated by goalkeeper Jokin Ezkieta and lodged into Bilbao's goal.
Bilbao's hard work only paid off seven minutes into the second half, when Iker Muniain's cross was met by Raul Garcia's sharp header.
Since the draw, both Ibiza and Bilbao have launched attacks in search of the winner and their efforts are likely to end in extra-time.
However, in the first minute of injury time Unai Nunez receives the ball in the box and finishes well, sending the ball into the bottom right corner of the net to seal Bilbao 2-1 win over Ibiza.
Barcelona and Bilbao are still waiting for their opponents in the last 16 in the draw which will take place on Friday evening, including Sevilla, Valencia and of course last season's finalists, Real Sociedad.