Barcelona kicked off preseason in entertaining fashion with a 2-2 draw against Birmingham City at St. Andrew’s on Friday. 22 players featured on the evening and a team full of La Masia youngsters and a few first team reserves had some excellent moments throughout the game, and 18-year-old Hamza Abdelkarim scored twice to open his Barça account.
Hansi Flick’s starting XI was a mix of La Masia youngsters and first team reserves, and they were facing a Birmingham side further along in their preparations
that played with a lot of intensity and pressed Barça high up the pitch.
The Catalans had some solid moments in possession and progressed the ball well from back to front against the press, but the final touch around the box was missing and Barça struggled to create chances.
Barça’s standout player of the half was Xavi Espart, who started at right-back and was involved in every good attack in the period. He constantly beat the press with his passing and ball-carrying, and always found teammates in good positions in the attacking half.
Ebrima Tunkara had a very good half as well, showing great strength and skill against the press and making some good runs in the final third. New signing Karim Adeyemi saw plenty of the ball but was mostly wasteful, although bad touches and passes are natural in early preseason games.
Birmingham took the lead against the run of play with a header from August Priske at the half-hour mark, but Barça continued to attack until young striker Hamza Abdelkarim won a foul inside the box and scored a great penalty to make it 1-1 at the break.
Hansi Flick made four changes at halftime, with Roony Bardghji one of them. The Swedish winger made an instant impact with his direct dribbling and and playmaking, and it was his shot from outside the box that was saved by the keeper and sent home on the rebound by Abdelkarim, who scored his second of the night with a classic poacher’s finish.
Flick made seven more changes right after the goal to field a whole new XI to finish the game, with nine Barça Atlètic players plus Roony and Héctor Fort. Jhon Solís equalized on a set piece with 20 minutes to go, and Birmingham gained a lot of momentum playing against inexperienced teenagers.
Barça’s kids responded, however, and had a very good finish to the game as they regained control of the ball and relied on Roony to create danger on the wing. Brian Fariñas and Jordi Pesquer had strong showings at the full-back spots, and Álex González looked really good on the left wing.
The young Blaugrana created several late chances but couldn’t find the winning goal thanks to some big saves by the Birmingham keeper, and the final whistle came to end a very entertaining friendly in England’s second city.
There was still a ceremonial penalty shootout to decide a winner on the night, and young keeper Áron Yaakobishvili made two saves but couldn’t help Barça get a win as the Blaugrana missed three times from the spot.
Regardless of the result of the shootout, this was still a pretty positive night for Barça with several individual bright spots and quite a few of the kids catching the eye, and it’s good to see that La Masia will always produce great talent.
