{"id":3910,"date":"2026-09-16T21:39:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=3910"},"modified":"2026-09-16T21:39:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:39:06","slug":"barcelona-crowd-show-support-for-struggling-defender-during-first-appearance-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=3910","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona crowd show support for struggling defender during first appearance of the season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The home crowd in attendance at <a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/team\/barcelona-5\">Barcelona<\/a>\u2019s La Liga meeting with Racing Santander on Wednesday made use of the opportunity to showcase their support for defensive star <a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/player\/alejandro-balde-367653\">Alejandro Balde<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>This of course comes amid what has been a challenging opening to the new campaign for the Spaniard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>After enduring a largely difficult term from an individual standpoint in 2025\/26, Balde was <a href=\"https:\/\/espndeportes.espn.com\/futbol\/espana\/nota\/_\/id\/17159998\/balde-manchester-united-cesion-barcelona-venta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\">heavily linked<\/a> with a Barcelona exit throughout the summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>In the end, the 22-year-old stayed put, but manager Hansi Flick has since made clear that Balde sits well down the left-back pecking order in his squad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>As things stand, both summer signing Jo\u00e3o\u00a0Cancelo and breakout youngster Xavi Espart are considered as being ahead of Balde when it comes to Barca\u2019s first-choice XI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>With the Catalans cruising towards another three-point haul at the expense of Racing Santander on Wednesday, though, Flick threw his struggling full-back a lifeline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>After Jo\u00e3o\u00a0Cancelo was on target to the tune of a brace, Balde was introduced in place of the Portuguese, for his first appearance of the season all told.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>And as alluded to above, those in attendance at the Camp Nou from here quickly threw their backing behind their side\u2019s one-time defensive prodigy, loudly chanting Balde\u2019s name in unison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/news\/barcelona-crowd-show-support-for-struggling-defender-during-first-appearance-of-the-season-43473917\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The home crowd in attendance at Barcelona\u2019s La Liga meeting with Racing Santander on Wednesday&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2Fv22Fphotobooth2Fcms2Fen2F434739173Fdate2026-09-16.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}