4 things we learned from Man City’s penalty shootout defeat to Barcelona
Manchester City’s winless run in pre-season continued in the early hours of Wednesday morning as they were held to a 2-2 draw by Barcelona before the Catalan giants won a penalty shootout.
Pep Guardiola, facing the club he played for almost 400 times and coached to three La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues, has presided over a couple of summer defeats to Celtic and Milan but was able to welcome back a handful of senior stars after their international excursions.
An eventful first half saw Barca head into the break 2-1 up after goals from Pau Victor, Nico O’Reilly and Pablo Torre before Jack Grealish got on the scoresheet on the hour mark. Seemingly no pre-season friendly in the United States is complete without a penalty shootout, however, allowing Hansi Flick to get one over Guardiola as La Blaugrana won 4-1 from the spot.
Here’s what we observed from the battle between two European giants.
With a few more prominent attackers still out of the picture, Oscar Bobb has taken the role of City’s chief creator in pre-season like a duck to water.
The Norway international contributed a goal and three assists in his first two summer games and was electric once again in Orlando, creating four chances and whizzing past Barca defenders with his sensational dribbling.
Guardiola could struggle to fit the 21-year-old into his starting XI regularly throughout the 2024/25 campaign but, having warned he expects his side to begin the campaign in slow fashion, an in-form Bobb could help fill the void before the likes of Jeremy Doku and Bernardo Silva are up to speed.
An INCREDIBLE run from @mateokovacic8, finished clinically by @JackGrealish 🔥
Watch live on CITY+ ⤵️
— Manchester City (@ManCity) July 31, 2024
City winger Jack Grealish spoke about his immense disappointment at missing out on England’s Euro 2024 squad before kick-off, admitting he wants to use the setback as motivation for an improved season.
He backed up his words with a clinical finish to draw the Premier League champions level, firing into the top corner after Mateo Kovacic turned defence into attack with a brilliant run from the edge of his area.
The former Aston Villa captain was poor in 2023/24 but his goal should boost his confidence tenfold.
While City had suffered two defeats before Wednesday’s meeting, it was Barca’s first pre-season friendly of the summer. Given they were without a number of first-team stars due to injuries and Euro 2024 hangovers, Flick’s side were impressive.
The Catalans pressured City into mistakes and took the lead when Marc Casado flicked through for Victor to finish confidently. Though O’Reilly equalised, Gerard Martin set up Torre to get Barca back ahead before half-time.
While more experienced campaigners like Robert Lewandowski, Inigo Martinez and Oriol Romeu made appearances from the bench, it was youngsters Noah Darvich, Alejandro Balde and Antonio Fernandez who netted from the penalty spot alongside Lewandowski to help Barca end the night on top.
Get the irony?
Fans were forced to endure a delay as kick-off was pushed back due to thunder and lightning and one would think a ground named the Camping World Stadium would be equipped well enough to deal with such ‚inclement weather‘.
The game eventually got underway 80 minutes late after fans huddled under the shelter of concrete stands watching the furious rain fall.