Barcelona’s perfect start to the 2024/25 season has come to an end in their eighth game of the season thanks to a 4-2 defeat to Osasuna in the 2024/25 season. El Sadar Stadium on Saturday evening. Hansi Flick’s side played a horrible game and were in second place for almost the entire match against an Osasuna team who defended almost perfectly and were nothing short of incredible on the counter-attack all night and rightly handed over the ball. Blaugrana their first league defeat of the season in emphatic fashion.

FIRST HALF

Staying true to their identity as an aggressive, attacking team, Osasuna made a brilliant start to the match, pressing Barça high up the pitch, constantly winning possession in good positions and creating plenty of danger with their quick and creative front players.

And their excellent start was rewarded with the opening goal, after Pablo Torre cleared the ball in midfield, the home side quickly counter-attacked, and Bryan Zaragoza’s brilliant cross from the left flank found the head of Ante Budimir to put the home side ahead . .

Barça were nowhere to be seen in the opening 20 minutes, and the absences of Lamine Yamal and Raphinha were palpable as a heavily rotated Barça side struggled to create meaningful attacks despite Pedri’s best attempts to help his teammates in good situations.

The Catalans continued to struggle mightily and had to pay again just before the half hour mark: Pau Víctor was clearly fouled in midfield but the referee somehow ignored it, Aimar Oroz played a glorious through ball to find Bryan’s point , and the youngster rounded Iñaki Peña before doubling the home side’s advantage.

Barça finally started to show some signs of improvement towards the end of the half, taking better care of the ball and not giving away such easy counter-attacking opportunities to the hosts. They also had some good moments in attack, but they never managed to create a real chance.

The half-time whistle brought an end to a dreadful opening period for Barça, who had plenty of talent on the bench but needed to play much better to have any chance of a second-half comeback.

SECOND HALF

Hansi Flick made no changes at the break, sticking to the same line-up and hoping that his half-time talk alone would be enough to inspire his troops to improve at the start of the final period.

Flick saw exactly what he had hoped for as Barca came out with more urgency and much better play in midfield and attack, and Robert Lewandowski was denied a precise goal by a great save from Sergio Herrera.

However, just 60 seconds after that, Herrera made a terrible mistake that allowed Barça to get back into the match by giving the ball away near his own penalty area and then failing to claim a properly speculative shot from Pau Víctor, who somehow found the net with an attempt. from 30 meters to give his team a chance to stage a comeback.

Flick made two changes on the hour mark, as Yamal and Raphinha replaced Víctor and Torre to try to take advantage of the Blaugrana‘s momentum. However, Osasuna were still a threat on the break and Budimir missed a big chance just after Barca’s substitutions as the home side showed they were not interested in just defending their lead.

The crowd was hot and the tempo increased as Barça piled on the pressure, and it felt like another goal was just around the corner. Ferran Torres almost scored an incredible solo goal but Herrera made another brilliant save and the visitors looked ever closer to an equalizer as the final twenty minutes approached.

Flick went back to his bench at that moment and called on Alejandro Balde and Marc Casadó, but they did not have time to make an impression as another Osasuna counter-attack resulted in a key moment in the match: Juan Areso’s cross almost found Budimir in the match. but the striker was fouled by Sergi Domínguez and the referee pointed to the spot. Budimir scored for the second time that evening and Osasuna restored their two-goal lead.

The home side refused to sit back and continued to attack relentlessly, especially against the left side of Barça’s defense, while Balde was outnumbered time and again and the home side created chance after chance. And they deservedly scored a fourth to wrap up the win in style when Abel Bretones took the ball from Yamal on the edge of the penalty area and fired a rocket into the bottom corner with five minutes to go.

Yamal made up for his mistake with a spectacular strike, making the match 4-2 as we reached stoppage time, but the Blaugrana couldn’t find a third party who could really bring their comeback bid to life.

The final whistle came to end Barça’s perfect start to the season, and there is no doubt that they deserved to lose and that they played a very poor match from start to finish, with the exception of the first ten minutes of the second half.

Hansi Flick got the starting XI all wrong with far too many rotations, but those on the pitch also played very poorly and deserve their share of the blame. Barça will still top the table regardless of what happens in the Madrid derby on Sunday, but this was an important reminder that there is still work to be done and that the injury crisis do matter.

This team is in desperate need of depth, and the schedule isn’t going to get easier or less crowded anytime soon.

Osasuna: Herrera; Areso (Herrando 84′), Catena, Boyomo, Cruz (Vidal 84′); Ibáñez, Torró; Bryan (Bretons 77′), Aimar, García (Peña 58′); Budimir (Garcia 77′)

Goals: Budimir (18′, pin 72′), Bryan (28′), Bretons (85′)

Barcelona: Peña; Kounde, Domínguez (Fort 85′), Cubarsí, Martín (Balde 70′); Torre (Raphinha 59′), Eric, Pedri; Ferran, Lewandowski (Casadó 70′), Víctor (Yamal 59′)

Goals: Víctor (53′), Yamal (89′)