IN SPORT.ES
A heavily rotated Barcelona side drew 1-1 with Celta Vigo on Thursday in the Copa del Rey as Ousmane Dembele made his return to competitive football.
Jose Arnaiz opened the scoring in the first half but his strike was cancelled out by Pione Sisto ahead of the second leg at Camp Nou next week.
The draw, which saw Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Andres Iniesta rested, allowed Barca to extend their unbeaten run to 26 games.
With Messi and Suarez left in Barcelona and Paco Alcacer injured, Ernesto Valverde named Barca B's Jose Arnaiz in attack, with support from Paulinho and Aleix Vidal.
There were also starts for Jasper Cillessen, Lucas Digne, Andre Gomes and Denis Suarez.
But it was Arnaiz who took the headlines, opening the scoring in the 15th minute with a smart first time finish.
Andre Gomes received the ball on the counter-attack, beat his man and pulled back for Arnaiz, who lashed home past Sergio Alvarez.
Celta bit back on the half hour mark. Barca's defence failed to react when the ball came back off the bar and Cillessen, with Sisto brilliantly firing into the roof of the neck.
Barca had chances to win it in the second half through Arnaiz and Denis, while Emre More fired just wide for Celta.
However, the big talking point after the break was the re-appearance of Dembele, who came on for the final 20 minutes.
The France international had not played since rupturing a tendon in September but is now back and available for Valverde once again.
Celta will travel to Camp Nou next Thursday for the second leg of the round-od-16 tie.