Neymar

Barcelona prove they're human in stunning loss to La Liga minnows

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:41 p.m. ET

Thomas Hautmann

Barcelona dropped a shocker to Deportivo Alaves on Saturday, losing their first match of the season, 2-1, against the newly promoted La Liga side on a brutal defensive mistake.

Coming off the international break and just three days before their Champions League opener, Luis Enrique fielded somewhat of a “B-team” with Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta, Jordi Alba and Samuel Umtiti all starting on the bench. But with the likes of Neymar – finally making his club season debut –Ivan Rakitic, Arda Turan and Paco Alcacer all still in the fold, the Catalans were still expected to make easy work of Alaves.

It didn’t happen. Instead, Barcelona found out that while you can have the deepest collection of attacking talent in the world, perhaps in the history of the sport, you can still be undone by some shambolic individual defending like this:

That’s Jeremy Mathieu and Javier Mascherano combining for a criminally poor play, duly punished by Alaves winger Ibai Gomez for the game winner after Barca had fought back from a first-half deficit. It dropped the La Liga champions to 4th place in the standings after the first three matchdays.

Barcelona’s defense has always been its one question mark over the last few seasons, and gaffes like that will only shed more spotlight on it. Their incredible offense more often than not makes up for any defensive shortcomings, but Saturday was a harsh reminder that if Barcelona are not at full strength or are caught on a bad night, they can be had.

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GOOOOAAAALL!
Wow. Bad mistake by Jeremy Mathieu gifts @Alaves a second goal and @FCBarcelona reeling. #beINLaLiga https://t.co/2H8Ezk0u2t
— beIN SPORTS USA (@beINSPORTSUSA) September 10, 2016

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