Real Madrid and Barcelona were ousted from the Copa del Rey quarterfinals on Thursday, the first time in nearly 65 years that the La Liga giants were eliminated from the tournament on the same day.
Real Sociedad ended Real Madrid's 21-game unbeaten run by winning 4-3 at the Bernabeu, while Barcelona were sent crashing out thanks to hosts Athletic Bilbao on a stoppage time header.
According to Opta Stats, the last time the two Spanish traditional powers were bounced from the competition on the same day was May 29th, 1955, when Real Madrid lost to Sevilla and Barcelona were eliminated by Athletic Club in the semifinals.
With Real and Barcelona out of this year's competition, Basque clubs Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao will join fellow La Liga counterparts Granada and second division side Mirandes in the final four.
The last Copa del Rey semifinals without Real Madrid and Barcelona occurred in 2009-10.
Barcelona have lifted the Copa a record 30 times, while Real Madrid have won it 19 times. Athletic Bilbao have 23 titles but have not won since the 1983-84 season.
Barcelona coach Quique Setien said he was hurt by the elimination but was pleased with his side's performance.
"Today everything went well apart from the result," he said. "We took a step forward in our play and I'm pleased with many things we did, I'm not only looking at the result."
On Real Madrid's loss, manager Zinedine Zidane said: "It's a bad feeling because we lost at home. We started badly. We tried until the end and the second half was much better ... the opponent played well. We were bad in the first half with our press, then we made defensive mistakes."
Nadan7
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Real Madrid and Barcelona were connected to the same losing wifi today
Nadan7
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Messi transfer rumours knocked out Real & Barcelona out of Copa Del Rey and now we’re still focusing on missi’s want away
Amanda-
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It’s Time for Messi to leave Barcelona and prove he’s indeed great 👍 Ronaldo has done it everywhere he went . And for me, that put Ronaldo way ahead of Messi. I agree Messi is absolutely natural and talented. But how do you break the tie ? You can never ignore Ronaldo is success everywhere he went . This’s the difference between Ronaldo and Messi, this gives Ronaldo advantage over Messi and History will tell the story in Favor of Ronaldo, unless , Messi moves and be successful or he wins the world cup . But as at today.. in my opinion, Ronaldo is the best