Neymar penalty conversion helped Barcelona earn a long-awaited 1-0 win over Real Sociedad in their Copa del Rey quarterfinal first leg on Thursday night at Anoeta in San Sebastian.
For Barcelona, it was their first victory on Real Sociedad's home turf in nearly 10 years and halted a wretched winless streak in San Sebastian of eight matches. The Brazilian was the hero on the night for Barcelona, as he both drew and scored the penalty that hands the reigning Copa del Rey champions an edge going into next week's return leg at the Camp Nou.
It was far from Barcelona's best, but all the ghosts that seem to appear any time they take the field in San Sebastian never surfaced. The Catalonians delivered a strong performance in defence while doing enough in attack to limit the hosts' chances.
Manager Luis Enrique made a few changes from the weekend team that downed Las Palmas, with the most notable insertion being the out of favour Ivan Rakitic back in the starting XI. Also returning to the line-up were goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen and left-back Lucas Digne.
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