Barcelona began their 2026/27 pre-season preparations at St. Andrew’s against Birmingham City, and it was a first chance for Culers to see the likes of Karim Adeyemi and Hamza Abdelkarim in what was a much-changed Blaugrana starting XI.
The English club were well-advanced in their own pre-season commitments, so there was every likelihood that the match would provide a decent run-out for Hansi Flick’s side.
Let’s take a look at three talking points from the game…
Reasonable debut from Adeyemi, superb from Abdelkarim
There’s not really an awful lot you can
read into such an early pre-season game, though Adeyemi’s contribution was promising at times.
Even if his passing let him down on more than one occasion, his pace was in evidence, and he often showed the Birmingham defence a clean pair of heels.
The one other area he’ll also need to work on as the season evolves is his finishing, but it must be remembered that he’s never been prolific, so Culers shouldn’t expect miracles from the get-go.
Abdelkarim comes to the club as a highly-rated prospect, and he did himself no harm with a two-goal salvo before being subbed off.
Lively throughout, he gave Birmingham’s defenders more than enough to think about, and time will tell if he’ll fulfil the undoubted promise he possesses.
Not enough sharpness
It’s perhaps to be expected that Barca weren’t as sharp as their opponents, and this was often noticeable in the midfield areas.
Despite having the two Marcs, Bernal and Casado, stationed there, they were often second best to the ball, handing the initiative to the hosts.
Notwithstanding the disparity of fitness between the two sides, which clearly affected Barca’s movement — or lack of it at times — there was also little zip and crispness to many of the passes being made by the visitors.
That allowed Birmingham’s hard-working players to retain much more possession than Hansi Flick would have liked.
That lack of movement and sharpness was also in evidence when Jhon Solis was left unmarked in the penalty area to score the hosts’ second goal.
No change to the high defensive line
If football watchers were expecting Flick to change his usual modus operandi, they were very much mistaken.
The German coach has brought success back to the Catalan giants by playing the high-risk, high-reward strategy of a high defensive line, and there was no way it wasn’t going to be utilised at Birmingham, even if it wasn’t executed too well at times.
It does require every Barca defender to be brave, and one or two youngsters need to work on their fearlessness in this regard if they’re given further opportunities.
