Barça earned a valuable 1-1 draw in the first leg of the Copa del Rey tie with Sevilla tonight in the Sanchez Pizjuan. Thierry Henry, who is beginning to look like the striker Barça hoped for, scored the opener after 24 minutes, but poor defending at a corner just before half time allowed Capel the space to equalize.

Frank Rijkaard kept faith in Giovani dos Santos in the starting lineup, and Iniesta moved back into midfield in place of Gudjohnsen in order to allocate Henry in attack. Both the Frenchman and the Mexican gave hard-working battling performances, the type of thing we usually expect from Samuel Eto’o who had a somewhat quiet game.

Perhaps the best game of the night for Barça came from Edmilson who apart from a mistake in the first minute that led to Luis Fabiano forcing the first save of the night from Victor Valdés, hardly put a foot wrong all night. He almost capped his performance with a goal in the 70th minute but his shot from 25 yards hit the base of the post. Unfortunately he couldn’t finish the game and went off holding his left thigh to be replaced by Thuram.

The first half began evenly, Valdés had to make another early save from an Alves free kick, and Giovani put Barça’s first chance just wide after exchanging passes with Henry. After 22 minutes Puyol was forced to go off for treatment on a knock and Barça quickly shuffled Marquez to right back and Edmilson back alongside Milito. Puyol was only off the field for a minute, and just when he came back on, Marquez who was still in the right back position, hit a super pass into the path of Henry who controlled superbly with the outside of his right foot before sliding the ball past the advancing keeper in his next stride. 

Sevilla tried to come straight back but Barça soaked up the pressure, mainly thanks to Marquez who had an excellent first half. However, as half time approached Sevilla began to find some cracks in the Barça defence. In the 40th minute Capel got past Puyol and crossed to Chevanton at the far post but the Sevilla striker could only head over. Then Capel made another run this time forcing a foul from Xavi. Alves had another attempt on goal with the free kick and Valdés made a bit of a mess of forcing the ball over the bar. From the corner nobody picked up Capel who had drifted away from the penalty spot, and when the ball reached him he fired in a low shot past Valdés.

Valdés made up for his error early in the second half when Chevanton got behind Marquez to meet Alves’s cross with a header that looked a certain goal, but Valdés produced a spectacular save tipping the ball onto the crossbar. Valdés made another good save just past the hour from a Luis Fabiano free kick. Barça didn’t create anything in the second half until the 64th minute  when Henry had a good left foot effort from 20 yards go just over.

Sevilla continued to look the more dangerous in the last 20 minutes, but Barça held firm and limited Sevilla to a shot wide from Luis Fabiano and a header wide from Kerzakhov. There was a scare in the last minute of normal time when Navas fell as a cross came over and the ref blew his whistle, the crowd cheered for what they thought was a penalty but to their disappointment the ref had only stopped the game to show Navas a yellow card for diving.

The return game will be at Camp Nou next Tuesday, kick off 9pm.

Barça: Valdés 6.5, Puyol 6, Marquez 7.5, Milito 6, Abidal 5.5; Xavi 5.5, Edmilson 8 (Thuram m75, 6), Iniesta 6; Giovani 6.5 (Bojan m92, –), Eto’o 5.5 (Gudjohnsen m85, –), Henry 7.5.

Goals: m24 Henry 0-1, m43 Capel 1-1.

Barça Yellows: Marquez, Giovani, Milito, Abidal, Puyol.

Click here for the goals

Extended highlights from Marca