Barcelona welcomed Eibar to Camp Nou on Tuesday evening live to the possibility of ascending to third place in La Liga should they record a victory.
Sevilla beat Villarreal 2-0 at the Sanchez-Pizjuan earlier in the evening, leapfrogging their opponents in the process and paving the way for the Blaugrana to prove their comeback isn’t simply another false dawn.
They couldn’t. Eibar were good value for their point, drawing 1-1 against a Lionel Messi-less Barcelona. The Argentine was sitting in the stands due to injury and caught doling out a disapproving shake of the head at the final whistle by Caught Offside.
La decepción de Messi. #LaCasadelFútbol pic.twitter.com/bfahuPsu60
— Fútbol en Movistar+ (@MovistarFutbol) December 29, 2020
The hosts could have taken the lead inside the first ten minutes. Ronald Araujo was deemed to have been fouled in the box after a lengthly VAR review, with the referee awarding a penalty that Martin Braithwaite went on to miss, pulling wide left.
Shortly before the hour mark, Eibar struck first blood. Araujo, a very able performer for the Blaugrana so far this season, made an uncharacteristic error to allow Kike Garcia to pounce and coolly finish to send the Basques 1-0 up.
Barcelona equalised in the 67th minute. Junior Firpo, who did well to assist Braithwaite earlier in the evening only for the Dane’s effort to be ruled out for offside, repeated the trick with an accurate centre for Ousmane Dembele, who came on at half-time, to finish accurately.
