We might never see what actually happens if Barcelona have to play at the Britannia Stadium on a cold and wet Tuesday evening, but today was a pretty close analogue - it was cold, wet, and certainly an evening at the Estadio San Mames and Athletic Bilbao even went so far as to wear red and white stripes. Ok, so the hosts passed the ball around a bit (until the water stopped anything that looked even remotely pass-like working and didn't break anyone's legs, but it was a pretty close simulacrum of what the Catalans would be facing if they did somehow find themselves playing against the might and power of Stoke City.
Athletic Bilbao Vs. Barcelona, 2011 La Liga: Messy And Entertaining 2-2 Draw In The Rain
And they didn’t really do very well.
Twice, Athletic led, the first fairly early in the match when Ander Herrera picked up a pullback after excellent work by Susaeta and slammed a shot past Victor Valdes, ending Barcelona's almost 900 minute clean sheet streak. Cesc Fabregas, starting on the right, leveled the match shortly thereafter, escaping Athletic's attention to nod home a cross from six yards and then... well, and then it started to rain. A lot.
Athletic were very good before the amount of water on the pitch turned the match into a farce, pressing Barcelona hard and doing a superb job emulating their more illustrious visitors with quick, slick passing, so it would be disingenuous to pretend that the rain was all that stopped Barcelona today. But the rain certainly helped, robbing the European champions’ midfield of the ability to pass as the ball got bogged down, the pitch slowly turning into a pretty good imitation of the Fire Swamp (complete with a ROUS in Fabregas).
The match was clearly going to come down to a mistake, and it was Barcelona who blinked first, Gerard Pique somehow managing to turn the ball into his own net from close range after Fernando Llorente had flicked a corner in his general direction, and for ten minutes it seemed as though Athletic might be able to inflict Barcelona's first defeat of the season.
However, a strange minute which saw Llorente substituted, Fernando Amorebieta sent off for reasons currently unknown and a phenomenal mess in the Athletic box featuring hilarious errors by Gorka Iraizoz and then entire back line eventually ended with that man Lionel Messi (who had done approximately nothing beforehand) sweep home to equalise at 2-2.
There was time for a late winner, but neither team would get it, and 2-2 the match would stay. That's a significant result, of course - Barcelona now find themselves three points back of arch-nemesis Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho, and that's a big gap considering how few points each side will drop over the course of this campaign. At least Barca are undefeated?
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