Gerard Pique

Gerard Pique battling with Espanyol’s Enzo Roco in their January La Liga encounter. Photograph: Joan Valls/NurPhoto/Corbis

Espanyol supporters smuggled a pig’s head into the Estadi Cornellà-El Prat stadium to throw at Gerard Piqué during a fraught Copa del Rey derby with Barcelona on Wednesday night.

Barcelona won the match 2-0 to complete a 6-1 aggregate victory following astormy first leg at the Camp Nou last week which had seen Lionel Messi stamped on and Luis Suárez suspended for his part in a fracas – and the second tie was just as ill-tempered.

A group of fans revealed the pig’s head, concealed in a paper bag, to a local radio journalist and claimed they wanted to recreate the incident in November 2002 when Barcelona fans threw a pig’s head at Luís Figo following his controversial switch to Real Madrid.

Piqué remained on the bench throughout to prevent the fans seeing through their plan. There were also several inflammatory banners with offensive messages towards Shakira, Pique’s partner, and Suárez.

Another sign read “Pau, your foot shows us the way” following the goalkeeper Pau López’s apparent stamp on Messi last week which infuriated the Ballon d’Or winner, a play on Real Madrid fans’ banner “José, your finger shows us the way” after José Mourinho poked the then-Barcelona coach Tito Vilanova in the eye during the 2011 Spanish Super Cup.

The game was just as spiky on the pitch with Felipe Caicedo and Marc-André ter Stegen clashing and Álvaro González apparently elbowing Messi near the end of the game. Álvaro reportedly called the Barça forward “really short”, marking his height with his hand, to which Messi replied: “You’re really bad.”