Barcelona continued their preseason preparations with a triangular tournament in Italy, beating Nottingham Forest 1-0 and losing 1-0 to hosts Udinese in a pair of 45-minute matches. Raphinha scored Barça’s only goal across the two games, but a few youngsters got to shine once again and stake their claim for a spot in Hansi Flick’s side.
Barça’s first game of the night started well, with the Blaugrana moving the ball against the Forest
press and getting into solid positions up front.
Xavi Espart once again played really well at right-back, and Hamza Abdelkarim was excellent up front with his hold-up and link-up play and off-ball pressing.
But the Catalans began losing the ball in midfield and started to concede dangerous counter-attacking opportunities, and Forest had at least three big chances including a rocket against the post by Morgan Gibbs-White.
Barça hit the post themselves with Brian Fariñas and Hamza missed an easy one on the rebound, but Forest were the better team as we reached the end of the half.
It looked as though we were headed for a penalty shootout to decide the winner, but a ball over the top from Raphinha found Fermín López and Milenkovic was called for a handball in the box, and Raphinha scored from the spot at the death to give Barça a 1-0 win in the first game.
Hansi Flick made two changes to begin the second game as Ebrima Tunkara and Shane Kluivert replaced Fermín and Raphinha, and Barça faced an Udinese side that played the same formation as Forest but were a lot more defensive than Barça’s first opponent.
The Catalans had the majority of the ball and Tunkara had some excellent moments with his dribbling and creativity in tight spaces, and Karim Adeyemi forced the keeper into a good save on the counter. Barça’s process of getting the ball from back to front was good, but they lacked the final ball to unlock the Udinese defense.
Barça didn’t have to do much defensively but Álvaro Cortés made a fantastic recovery run and slide tackle in the box to stop Gueye from scoring, but Udinese had one last chance and scored a winner at the death as Gueye found Bayo in the box for a sweet finish over Szczesny.
The final whistle came to end the tournament, which was won by Udinese with a pair of 1-0 wins against Forest and Barça, who finished second thanks to their win over Forest.
Flick used 21 players over the two games and Espart, Adeyemi, Hamza and Tunkara were Barça’s standout performers on the night.
It was a good test and a fun format for a preseason tournament, and the Blaugrana now return home to welcome back the World Cup players and continue their preparations next week.
