Barcelona beat Actual Madrid 2-1 in Saturday’s U.S. preseason installment of El Clasico at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, thanks to 2 targets from Pau Victor.
The conflict between the 2 famed LaLiga golf equipment was delayed by greater than an hour attributable to lightning within the space that pressured gamers to retreat to the locker rooms after 11 minutes had been performed within the first half.
After they did return, Victor continued his spectacular preseason to additional his case to play a task in new coach Hansi Flick’s plans for the upcoming season.
After scoring the opening objective towards Manchester Metropolis on Tuesday, the 22-year-old once more confirmed a scientific eye for objective to attain both aspect of half-time.
With the rain persevering with to crew down, Victor broke the impasse within the forty second minute. Following a right-wing cross from the spectacular Álex Valle, Robert Lewandowski acquired a foot to the ball to take it completely into the trail of the alert Victor to go into the web from shut vary.
After a half-time break of solely 5 minutes as a result of earlier climate delay, Victor repeated the trick to double Barcelona’s lead within the 54th minute. Once more Valle offered the cross and once more Victor was on the proper place to stretch and get sufficient on the ball to take it previous Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.
Madrid have been boosted off the bench by a primary look of preseason by Vinícius Júnior and acquired again into the competition when Nico Paz took benefit of some absent Barcelona defending to go in a nook from Arda Güler with eight minutes remaining.
However Barcelona held on to make it 4 wins from 4 in Clascios performed on U.S. soil and ship a message as they give the impression of being to dethrone the Spanish and European champions within the season forward.
Each groups have been with out a number of of their star names following summer time worldwide tournaments. Barcelona have but to welcome again Spain’s Euro 2024 winners Lamine Yamal and Ferran Torres, whereas Ronald Araújo, Pedri, Gavi, Frenkie de Jong and Ansu Fati all missed the journey to the U.S. attributable to accidents.
Actual Madrid, in the meantime, nonetheless await the primary look in a Los Blancos jersey of Kylian Mbappé. England star Jude Bellingham was one other high-profile identify to overlook out on the tour.
Each groups will wrap up their excursions of the U.S. on Friday, with Barcelona going through AC Milan in Baltimore and Actual Madrid taking up Chelsea in Charlotte. The LaLiga season begins in two weeks’ time.