• March: Philip Coutinho will play on loan at Bayern

Those who doubted, those who believed that this last season was taken active as a prebenda, as a long farewell in which everything was going to be allowed ask for forgiveness. Let them kneel before Aduriz because he is eternal, because at 38 he has returned again, and it is no longer known how many resurrections they are. Even stunts are allowed to, a few seconds after starting their last year in active, liquidate the champion, a whole Barcelona with an imperial Chilean average when the match was already dying. Ave, Aritz.

It will be that it is still summer, which in August still smells more like saltpeter than football. It would be that Messi was missing, that Suarez was injured soon and that Griezmann has not yet landed in his new galaxy. It will be that Neymar is missing, some will say, that despite the defeat he will take care to say that Rakitic is left over. It will be whatever, but the truth is that Barcelona starts this League with defeat. He might not deserve it, that Aduriz's divine punishment was excessive, but he certainly did not reap merit to take away the three points of San Mamés. A Cathedral that enjoyed the most, a few hours before the Great Week of Bilbao begins, anticipated this year by Aduriz to rave a fan forever devoted to his eternal legend.

The striker brought out the great defensive work of his teammates throughout the match. The Barca team was not comfortable at any time, always well tied by a solid and sticky Athletic pressure. An Athletic, in short, traced to the final leg of last season, with the relay of Simón by Herrerín in the goal as the most significant relay. The search for Williams in the race was an obsession for Garitano, the plan with which to overcome this first calendar challenge. However, Ter Stegen answered with ease the two occasions in which the blood was about to reach the river in the first half.

The worst thing for Barça, however, was the injury of Luis Suárez, hurt in the right twin after sending an incomprehensible gift of Unai López to the stick in the form of a pass to - presumably - his goalkeeper. In the 37th minute, Valverde had to spend his first change, giving entry to Rafinha, passing Griezmann to practice nine, and after the break he made the second, this tactician, introducing Rakitic for Aleñá, the great surprise of the eleventh Barça, together to the replacement of Busquets.

The Croatian, always in need of vindication to the rumor market, no matter how much his performance speaks for him, he did what he usually does. His entry improved to Barcelona because he gave consistency to his football and because he allowed him to have a commander in chief on the field, a guy who assumed the chevrons and made sense of the attack moves. The mixture of parsimony and disorientation of Griezmann, who at times reminded Coutinho - and that is not exactly good -, now on the way to Munich, prevented Barça from growing much more attack, but at least those of Valverde managed to tie short to a Athletic increasingly hidden in his den.

That was until Aduriz replaced Williams two minutes from the end. A change without apparent importance, just to waste time. That seemed until Aduriz knocked down Ter Stegen, all of Barcelona and again at the same time, the one who seems to be immune, because he always wins the game.

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