Leaning forward in his winter coat, Lionel Messi on Wednesday fidgeted with an empty water bottle as he watched his Barcelona teammates trailing their fiercest rivals, but minutes before he decided to test his tender right leg, the chants at the Camp Nou for “Messi” turned into cheers as a little-used teammate scored an equalizer against Real Madrid.
Malcom’s second-half goal left their Copa del Rey semi-final poised 1-1 after the first leg, with Madrid going home with a slight away-goal edge for the return game later this month.
“The tie is wide open, there is no clear favorite,” Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde said. “Given the caliber of the two sides, there is still a lot to be said.”
Photo: EFE
Having picked up a leg injury after scoring twice in a 2-2 draw with Valencia in La Liga on Saturday, Messi stayed on the bench until the 64th minute.
The Argentine then came on and did not show any signs of an injury when he plucked the ball from Casemiro’s boot, raced forward and was fouled by a scrum of Madrid defenders near the penalty area.
He stayed on the turf to gather himself, before he smashed his free-kick into the wall, but other than an opening goal by Madrid forward Lucas Vazquez and Malcom’s equalizer, El Clasico was more of a clunker.
It was the first of three matches between Spain’s most successful clubs in less than a month. The second leg of the semi-final in Madrid is on Feb. 27, just before their La Liga game at the Santiago Bernabeu on March 3.
“Today he felt fine, but we thought it would be better that he waited until the second half,” Valverde said about Messi. “When he went out he had the chance to be decisive. Each time he touched the ball we could see the reaction he provoked in our rivals.”
In October last year, Messi missed Barcelona’s 5-1 rout of Madrid in La Liga, a stinging loss that sealed the fate of former Real coach Julen Lopetegui.
This time out, Madrid made sure to set a strong tone from the opening minutes, when they maintained possession long enough to get in front.
The highlight duel was between Barcelona rightback Nelson Semedo, who got the most of Madrid youngster Vinicius Jr with more than one skillful dribble, but the 18-year-old did provide the key pass for the visitors’ goal in the sixth minute when he spotted Karim Benzema at the far post defended by undersized Jordi Alba.
Benzema won the ball after Alba failed to reel it in and the Real Madrid striker sent a low pass across the goalmouth where Vazquez slipped around Clement Lenglet to redirect it home.
“I am not surprised [by Vinicius] because I have known him since he arrived here,” said Madrid coach Santiago Solari, who coached Vinicius Jr in the B team before he started featuring him after he replaced Lopetegui. “That an 18-year-old kid plays like this is surprising because it doesn’t happen often.”
As Madrid sat back to protect the advantage, Barcelona began to find holes in their defense.
Ivan Rakitic headed Malcom’s free-kick off the crossbar in the 32nd minute and Luis Suarez drew a one-handed save from goalkeeper Keylor Navas after Malcom bungled his way through three defenders before setting him up on the edge of the area.
Malcom pulled the hosts level in the 58th minute when he curled a left-foot strike from an angle into the net with Navas off his line.
Lenglet’s long pass to Alba streaking into space forced Navas off his line to strip the ball, but it fell to Suarez who hit the post, before Malcom gathered the rebound and finished it off.
It was the 21-year-old’s third goal since joining Barcelona in the summer from Girondins de Bordeaux.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier