{"id":456692,"date":"2026-02-03T23:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456692\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T23:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:55:08","slug":"albacete-1-2-barcelona-4-feb-2026-game-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456692\/","title":{"rendered":"Albacete 1-2 Barcelona (4 Feb, 2026) Game Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barcelona<\/a> reached the semifinals of the Copa del Rey<\/a>,\u00a0but only after making hard work of beating giantkillers Albacete 2-1.<\/p>\n

The hosts, 12th in the Segunda Division, reached the quarterfinals courtesy of their shock 3-2 victory over Real Madrid<\/a> in the last 16 in Alvaro Arbeloa’s first match in charge.<\/p>\n

They were unable to repeat those heroics against Bar\u00e7a, although they did give the holders a fright when Javi Moreno scored with three minutes left.<\/p>\n

But ultimately goals from Lamine Yamal<\/a> and Ronald Ara\u00fajo<\/a> kept Barcelona on course for a record-extending 33rd Copa del Rey success.<\/p>\n

The underdogs threatened in the early stages with Antonio Puertas twice forcing saves from Barcelona goalkeeper Joan Garc\u00eda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Bar\u00e7a grew into the game and Gerard Mart\u00edn<\/a> fired a decent opportunity over from Yamal’s cross.<\/p>\n

\"BarcelonaBarcelona players celebrate after scoring a goal against Albacete in the Copa del Rey.<\/p>\n

It was Bar\u00e7a who broke the deadlock six minutes before half-time when Marcus Rashford<\/a> drew two defenders towards him before squaring for Frenkie de Jong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Dutch midfielder slipped the ball out to Yamal, who lashed a superb first-time finish across Albacete keeper Raul Lizoain and inside the far post.<\/p>\n

The visitors almost added a second in first-half stoppage time but Dani Olmo<\/a> headed Yamal’s cross narrowly wide.<\/p>\n

Araujo doubled the lead 11 minutes into the second half with a glancing header from Rashford’s corner.<\/p>\n

Lizoain kept Albacete in the match with saves from Robert Lewandowski<\/a> and Olmo, while Ferran Torres<\/a> blazed a good chance over.<\/p>\n

And Bar\u00e7a were made to sweat when Moreno headed home a cross from Jose Carlos Lazo.<\/p>\n

Torres thought he had wrapped up the tie when he fired home but VAR disallowed the goal for offside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona reached the semifinals of the Copa del Rey,\u00a0but only after making hard work of beating giantkillers Albacete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-456692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}