Barcelona broke the club record with its 29th consecutive unbeaten game when their second-stringers salvaged a 1-1 draw against Valencia in the Copa del Rey semi-finals on Wednesday.
Barcelona reached their third straight Copa final 8-1 on aggregate after they won the first leg 7-0 at the Camp Nou last week.
Striker Alvaro Negredo gave Valencia the lead in a breakaway before halftime, but Cameroon-born youngster Wilfrid Kaptoum, a member of Barcelona’s B team, equalized in the 84th, two minutes into his senior debut.
Photo: AP
Barcelona eclipsed the record they shared with Pep Guardiola’s 2011 squad, despite playing without nearly all of their regular starters at the Estadio Mestalla in Valencia, including Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar. Coach Luis Enrique used youngsters, with Ivan Rakitic the only experienced starter.
“Honestly, the record wasn’t our main goal,” Rakitic said. “We are happy, but the most important thing is to win titles at the end of the season. We would all exchange the record for titles.”
The draw should increase pressure on Valencia coach Gary Neville, the former England defender who has been struggling in his first head-coaching job.
He also used second-stringers in his squad, resting some of the starters for the La Liga match against RCD Espanyol tomorrow.
Barcelona will likely play the final against Sevilla, who held a four-goal lead over RC Celta de Vigo going into yesterday’s second leg in Vigo. It will be Barcelona’s sixth Copa del Rey final in the past eight seasons.
“We are thrilled to make it to another final,” Enrique said. “Our fans are getting spoiled, just look at the number of Copa finals that we’ve played in the last few years. It tells a lot about this club’s capacity to reinvent itself, it tells a lot about the type of players that we have.”
Enrique’s team have not lost since a 2-1 defeat at Sevilla in the seventh round of the Spanish league in October last year. They were trying to win their 11th in a row on Wednesday.
Guardiola’s steak ended with a 3-1 loss at Real Betis Balompie in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals. His team won 23 games and drew five, scoring 85 goals and conceding 14.
Enrique’s squad has won 23 games and drawn six, scoring 87 and conceding 15.
The Barcelona team coached by Rinus Michels and including Johan Cruyff in the 1973-1974 season, won 27 straight games.
Negredo opened the scoring after entering the area free from markers. He found the net after his initial shot was partially blocked by Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. The late equalizer by the 19-year-old Kaptoum came with a close-range shot after a low cross by Juan Camara.
Valencia had lost three straight games.
They have not won in the Spanish league in 12 rounds, with nine of those coming while under the command of Neville.
Only about 16,000 fans showed up at the 55,000-seat Mestalla.
A supporter held a banner that read: “Bye bye, Neville.”
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