As reported by Marca, Barcelona beat Real Madrid 1-0 in a pre-season friendly in Las Vegas.
The game was highly anticipated by both sets of supporters, especially Barcelona fans, who had the chance to see Robert Lewandowski play in the Blaugrana shirt for the first time.
Unlike a lot of pre-season friendlies, this El Clásico match-up was fiercely contested by both teams. Barcelona utilised a high-pressing tactic that focused on maintaining possession and quickly recovering the ball.
It was newly signed Raphinha who scored the first and only goal of the game, who hammered home the ball into the top-left corner of Thibaut Courtois’ goal in the 27th minute.
Even though this was a much weakened Real Madrid side that we are used to seeing in La Liga and the Champions League, the El Clásico in Las Vegas demonstrated the club’s heavy reliance on Karim Benzema – Los Blancos failed to have a single shot on target throughout the whole game.
While this was a promising performance from Barcelona, it is difficult to draw conclusions from this fixture regarding how the season will pan out, especially considering that both sides made lots of substitutions throughout the game and are still heavily involved in the transfer market. For instance, Barcelona still haven’t given up on signing Jules Koundé.
GSFN
