Barcelona defender reveals he has been playing with knee issue for two weeks after Athletic Club loss | OneFootball

Barcelona saw their Copa del Rey journey come to an end last night as they were defeated 4-2 (after extra time) by Athletic Club away at San Mames.

Barcelona put up a strong fight, but things went awry for them in the final hour or so as the hosts proved to be the better team on the night.

The Catalans were not helped by the fact that they had multiple players deal with physical issues on the night either.

First Alejandro Balde went off with a hamstring problem while Andreas Christensen was also taken off late in the game with some problem.

Araujo playing through discomfort

Ronald Araujo also sustained a knock to his knee, but opted to carry on despite the problem. And after the game, the Barcelona captain on the night revealed that he has been dealing with a knee problem for two weeks now.

“Well, the truth is that it bothers me. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now, but I always want to be there,” said the captain, as quoted by Mundo Deportivo.

It is bound to be a reason for concern for Barcelona, more so considering that they are already without a number of key players through injuries.

The Catalans will be hoping that the Uruguayan has not exacerbated the condition by pushing himself yesterday.

Araujo talks loss to Athletic Club

Speaking of the game, Araujo, like manager Xavi, insisted that he was proud of the Barcelona team despite things not going their way on the night.

“The truth is that it is sad to lose this match, we wanted to fight for this title. The game was very difficult, Athletic are a great team and at their ground even more so. Here the crowd always pushes. I’m proud of the team because we competed,” he said.

Reproaching himself and the defence for dropping their concentration levels, Araujo added: “They scored against us in the last minute of extra time, maybe we should have been smarter to hold on.”

But, the centre-back called on the team to focus on what lies ahead, saying: “It’s a hard blow because we were eliminated. We have two more competitions. La Liga, where we have two home games coming up and then we also have the Champions League. We have two titles left and we will fight until the end.”

On Lamine Yamal missing two great chances to score in the second half, Araujo added: “Lamine is 16 years old, but we can’t reproach him for anything. The best thing for him is that there will be more goals to come in his career.”

When quizzed about the future of manager Xavi, Araujo replied: “Xavi’s future depends on the board, we can’t intervene. But trust me, we’re very happy with the coach. He has helped us a lot and we want him to stay.”