Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman said after the 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao yesterday, Saturday, in the Spanish League, that the rival teams dared to attack his club and are playing with more courage after the departure of the team's historic scorer, Lionel Messi.
Memphis Depay scored a goal near the end with a powerful shot, canceling Bilbao's lead with Inigo Martinez's header, to get Barcelona the equalizer, but Koeman confirmed that the club is still affected by the departure of captain Messi two weeks ago to Paris Saint-Germain after 21 years with the Catalan club.
"I don't want to talk about the same thing, but we are talking about the best player in the world, and the opponents are always afraid when Messi is present," Koeman told reporters.
"The same thing affects us. If you pass the ball to Messi, he usually does not lose it. We can feel his absence. We knew that, but we can't change anything."
Summary of the exciting draw between "Athletic Bilbao" and "Barcelona" 📺🔥#AthleticBarça 1-1#LaLigaSantander pic.twitter.com/IYkw7M7jdR
— LaLiga (@LaLigaArab) August 21, 2021
Barcelona started the season strongly without Messi, and beat Real Sociedad 4-2 last week, but it was subjected to a difficult test and was not the best party during the draw with Bilbao, which imposed its control for long periods.
"I think we had great difficulties at the beginning of the game. We put the opponent under a lot of pressure and they performed well, we could not be patient during the game," the Dutch coach said.
"But I would like to commend our approach after being late. I think a draw is a fair result, because if you play the way we played you will always have problems. I have no complaints about the result."