Match Review : AC Milan vs FC Barcelona (0-1)

The last match of the USA tour has arrived.

Barca injected some life into it with their win against Real Madrid this past weekend. Could they continue their momentum and end the tour on a good note?

Let’s find out.

First half

The opening 45 minutes weren’t a bore, in fact it was far from it.

Both squads produced some exciting football, some attractive end to end football that could realistically attract even the most uninterested of football fans.

But what was lacking was a bit of end product, the sole thing that transitions end to end football into exciting football with real results. On Barca’s side, the lack of end product really came from the lack of final ball efficiency from the wings, but more so from Raphinha.

The Brazilian got himself into a lot of good positions. But they were usually at a place where Raphinha had to use his right foot to make things happen. As you know, his right foot isn’t his speciality, so trouble came from that for the most part.

He did have a shot on goal, but it was when he was able to cut onto his left foot and get a strike in from that.

Aside from that, Abde had another good 45 minute cameo. The Moroccan dazzled the Nevada crowd with his swift movement and elegant dribbling. His end product was lacking as well, but you could say it was mostly due to Barca’s lack of runners against AC Milan’s low defensive block.

Because of the lack of action, the score line didn’t really have much of a threat in the first half. Well, aside from a Jules Koundé shot that rang off the post. Other than that, there wasn’t much threat from both attacks.

Due to that, we hit a halftime score line of 0-0. Far from the result attendees wanted, but twas the result they received nonetheless. We were sure to see more subs, so maybe we’d get more in the way of end product in the second half.

Luckily for us, we did.

Second half

As mentioned previously, we got some end product in the second half.

And this time, it came from a familiar face that’s battling for playing time on the left wing this season.

Ansu Fati with a cracking goal

It was Ansu Fati that drew first blood.

But in reality, it was his left flank mate — Alejandro Balde — that set everything up to succeed. Balde used his blistering pace to draw defenders toward him, leaving Fati with some space to decide his next options.

Fati received the ball, took a brilliant touch, then fired a very pretty shot top bins past Mike Maignan.

1-0 Barca.

Ansu Fati GOLAZO! Balde with the assist.pic.twitter.com/6R8ICVNr8Y

— ArsenKveFCB (@ArsenKveFCB) August 2, 2023

It was very fun to watch Balde pull off another good feat because of his pace. But it was extremely encouraging to see Ansu return a bit to his old ways, by taking advantage of his superb ball striking skills and getting results out of them.

He’s not back to his old self yet. But Fati is starting to show more signs that he’s gradually returning to it. You can only hope he’ll find a way to fully return, since his old self was shaping up to be the next star at the club.

After Fati’s goal, the action died down.

Barca found some breath stopping moments from young players like Lamine Yamal and others. But in the end, Barca couldn’t find a second goal as the youth movement took over in the dying moments of the second half

The match ended in a 1-0 win for Barca, their second of the preseason.

Final word

And that’s a wrap for the USA tour.

This was another fun set of matches from Barca in the USA. We saw some pretty fun moments from Pedri, Ilkay Gündogan, and of course Oriol Romeu. We also saw some lowlights from Sergiño Dest and Marcos Alonso.

But for the most part, we were treated to some good football.

It was good to see Yamal get a lot of minutes in this match. You could tell he was eager, even coming close to scoring a few times. Also, Mikayil Faye’s debut was good to see as well.

Now all there’s left to do is to wait until Barca’s next match, which is…

Barca’s next match

Barca’s next match will be next Tuesday night against Tottenham. This’ll be the traditional Joan Gamper match.

See you all then!