<\/p>\n
Barcelona’s Rodrigo gestures during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Athletic in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026.<\/p>\n
Joan Monfort\/AP Photo\/Joan Monfort<\/p>\n
Barcelona’s Pau Cubarsi, left, and Athletic Bilbao’s Aymeric Laporte challenge for the ball during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Athletic in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026.<\/p>\n
Joan Monfort\/AP Photo\/Joan Monfort<\/p>\n
Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal controls the ball surrounded by Athletic players during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Athletic in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026.<\/p>\n
Joan Monfort\/AP Photo\/Joan Monfort<\/p>\n
Chelsea’s Danny Welbeck celebrates scoring during the League Cup soccer match between Chelsea and Luton Town in London, Thursday Aug. 27, 2026. (Adam Davy\/PA via AP)<\/p>\n
Adam Davy\/Adam Davy\/PA via AP<\/p>\n
Fulham’s Gonzalo Garcia, left, gets past the AFC Wimbledon goalkeeper Nathan Bishop to score their third goal of the game during the League Cup soccer match between Fulham and AFC Wimbledon in London, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (John Walton\/PA via AP)<\/p>\n
John Walton\/John Walton\/PA via AP<\/p>\n
MADRID (AP) \u2014 Rodri made his Barcelona debut in the team\u2019s 2-0 win over Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish League on Thursday, while Chelsea and Fulham advanced to the third round of the English League Cup.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Barcelona’s match was supposed to feature a tribute to Spain\u2019s World Cup champions but instead it became an act of support for the \u201cestelada\u201d flag, Catalonia\u2019s pro-independence symbol.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Rodri’s first minutes with Barcelona<\/p>\n
Rodri, signed from Manchester City after captaining Spain to the World Cup title, came off the bench in the 62nd minute to a warm welcome from the Camp Nou crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m happy to play my first game with Barcelona, happy for the victory, the second in a row for the team,\u201d Rodri said. \u201cIt’s important to start gaining rhythm. I felt good with my first minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodri is one of eight World Cup winners in Barcelona’s squad, but the planned tribute for them ahead of the match didn’t take place after one of the club’s fans had an estelada flag taken away from him by police before the team\u2019s game at Elche last weekend. He confronted the officers and ended up being hit and detained.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Instead of the tribute, an act supporting the estelada organized by a local group took place with Camp Nou laden with some 10,000 small flags that were handed to fans.<\/p>\n
Raphinha and Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez scored a goal in each half to give Barcelona its second straight win to start the defense of its Spanish league title.<\/p>\n
Athletic goalkeeper Unai Sim\u00f3n \u2014 Spain’s starter at the World Cup \u2014 made a series of outstanding saves to keep Barcelona from scoring more goals.<\/p>\n
In the other La Liga game, Osasuna came from behind to win 2-1 at 10-man Celta Vigo.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
No Enzo for Chelsea in League Cup win<\/p>\n
Danny Welbeck’s goal and an own-goal by Hakeem Odoffin gave Chelsea a 2-0 win over third-division Luton in the second round of the English League Cup.<\/p>\n
Chelsea coach Xabi Alonso fielded a strong lineup following a 3-2 win at Fulham in the Premier League on Monday, but Enzo Fernandez \u2014 reportedly of interest to Man City \u2014 was not in the squad.<\/p>\n
Luton is coached by 34-year-old Jack Wilshere, the former Arsenal and England midfielder.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
In the other League Cup game, Fulham defeated third-tier Wimbledon 3-0 with goals by Emile Smith Rowe, Rodrigo Muniz and Gonzalo Garc\u00eda. It was coach \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa’s first win in charge of the London club.<\/p>\n
Europa League: Salah’s Trabzonspor out<\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah’s Trabzonspor was eliminated by Ferencvaros 5-0 on aggregate following a 4-0 away loss in the second leg.<\/p>\n
Trabzonspor finished the game with nine men after having Ruslan Malinovskyi sent off in the 13th minute and Sidny Lopes Cabral in the 57th.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Salah, who scored his first goals with his new club over the weekend, was substituted in the second half.<\/p>\n
Portugal’s Benfica beat Danish side AGF 3-1 on the road to advance 6-2 on aggregate. Gianluca Prestianni, who was disciplined for verbally abusing Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior in the Champions League last season, scored twice for Benfica.<\/p>\n
In the Conference League playoffs, Rangers fell to Czech Republic side Jablonec in a penalty shootout.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona’s Rodrigo gestures during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Athletic in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,29140,29147,29144,943,29143,2509,29142,29141,3121,1561,1562,1558,4693,1559,14716,29146,29145,17,5842],"class_list":["post-76857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-rodri-estelada-chelsea-fulham-laliga-enzo","tag-danny-welbeck","tag-emile-smith-rowe","tag-enzo-fernandez","tag-gianluca-prestianni","tag-gonzalo-garcia","tag-hakeem-odoffin","tag-jack-wilshere","tag-mohamed-salah","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32553-ap-online-soccer-news","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-rodrigo-hernandez","tag-rodrigo-muniz","tag-ruslan-malinovskyi","tag-spain","tag-unai-simon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}