Barcelona fall to Osasuna, suffer first La Liga defeat of season

Barcelona’s perfect run of seven consecutive league wins ended on Saturday night after their shock 4-2 defeat away to Osasuna in La Liga.

The hosts had a two-goal cushion within the first 28 minutes thanks to a header by Croatian striker Ante Budimir and a sublime strike by Spaniard Bryan Zaragoza.

Barca found their equalizer soon after the restart through Pau Victor, but the aggressively attacking Rojillos scored their third goal from 12 yards through Budimir.

Abel Bretones scored Osasuna’s fourth goal with a stinging long-range strike, before Lamine Yamal netted Barcelona’s consolation goal with one minute left.

Speaking after the defeat, Barca boss Hansi Flick attributed the defeat to player rotations.

“We made a lot of rotations and maybe it was one of the reasons, but they were necessary, said the German manager.

“There are many games in this stretch of the calendar and some players had accumulated many minutes.”

He further defended his decision to rest key figures like Raphinha and Lamine.

“If you take a look at the squad right now, we have only three midfielders and a centre-back playing as a midfielder,” Flick said.

“It is not easy, but we accept it,”

“After the international break we will recover several players, and then we will have more options to choose from in each game.”

“The many rotations are not an excuse, because we had no alternative.”

Before the match, the Blaugrana enjoyed a four-point cushion over champions Real Madrid.

This lead could, however, be reduced to a single point should the Blancos defeat city rivals Atletico in Sunday’s Madrid derby.

Barcelona will host Young Boys on Tuesday night in the Champions League, with online betting sites paying -1250 for Barca to defeat the Swiss Super League champions (+2787).

Meanwhile, Osasuna will be on the road against Getafe next Saturday.

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