Araujo, Balde hail Barcelona star after MOTM display vs Sociedad: “We know his quality”

Barcelona secured a spot in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey after they defeated Real Sociedad 1-0 at Camp Nou on Wednesday night.

A second-half strike from Ousmane Dembele proved to be enough for the Blaugrana as they made it to the final four of the cup competition.

While it was not the best performance from the Catalans, especially in the second half, one player who stood out the most was Dembele.

The Frenchman was near-unstoppable on Wednesday and caused Real Sociedad a lot of problems. Upon being substituted late in the game, the winger walked off to a rousing ovation from the Camp Nou faithful.

Speaking after the match, Ronald Araujo heaped praise on Dembele after his match-winning performance, saying: “Ousmane played a great game. We know his quality as a player. He makes good decisions now, and this is the most important thing he lacked before.”

The Uruguayan defender, who himself put in a solid shift on the night, spoke about the team’s display against La Real and said: “We are very happy, but we have to correct our mistakes.”

“I’m sure that Xavi will have something to say about not finishing off this match earlier, but we’re happy… We’re in the semi-finals!”

On his battle with Real Sociedad striker Alexander Sorloth, Araujo said: “I like the matches against the big strikers, like this one, against Sorloth.”

Araujo’s fellow defender Alejandro Balde also interacted with the media after the match and was full of praise for Dembele, as he said: “We are proud to have Dembélé in this team. He has many qualities, he brings a lot in attack. He is great.”

At the same time, though, like Araujo, Balde also insisted that the team needed to kill off the game at an earlier stage, saying: “We had many chances in the first half. We could have killed off the game earlier… We will try to work on that.”

Talking about Barcelona’s objective in the Copa del Rey, the young left-back added: “We had four games left in this Copa del Rey edition, now three. It’s our objective, we want this Copa del Rey!”

Following the cup assignment, Barcelona will return to La Liga action this weekend as they take on local rivals Girona in the Catalan derby away from home.