Flick's Barça starts the tour by winning on penalties against City in an entertaining match (2-2)

FC Barcelona debuted on the 2024 American tour with a draw against Manchester City at the Camping World Stadium in Florida (2-2). Already in the penalty shootout, the Barcelona players were much better and went 4 out of 4 to win the match. Both Hansi Flick and Pep Guardiola opted for similar schemes from the start (4-2-3-1), but with different bets in their respective lineups. The Catalan put his best men from the start, with Éderson, Gvardiol, Kovacic, Grealish and Haaland in the XI, while Barça started with only substitutes and possible discards, among them Lenglet and Vitor Roque.

The 'cityzens' took control of the match in the opening quarter of an hour, creating danger from the sides and with Erling very active inside the area. The '9' had the first clear chance in the 11th minute thanks to a cross from Oscar Bobb that the striker finished low, requiring the intervention of Iñaki Peña on the line to prevent the goal. Barça reacted thanks to some sparks from Pablo Torre and the good work of Bernal and Casadó in the center of the field.

Pablo Torre was the best of an effective Barça in the first half

The opening of the scoring came in the 24th minute. A good start by Sergi Domínguez towards Casadó allowed the midfielder to filter a first-class pass to Pau Víctor. The forward, taking advantage of the nap of the 'sky blue' centre-backs, controlled to his right to enter the area and take a low shot that slipped between Éderson's legs. Pep's men reacted with the 0-1 and once again opted for balls into space to hurt the Barça backline.

In the 39th minute, Gvardiol caught Nico O'Reilly's diagonal, filtering a pass that left the English midfielder well positioned to finish. The 19-year-old fired a cross shot, beating Iñaki to tie the match. The score seemed 1-1 until half-time, but in the last action of the first half, a low cross by Gerard Martín from the left that Pau Víctor let pass between his legs fell to Pablo Torre. The Cantabrian, who had more clarity every time he came into play, took the opportunity to control on the edge of the area and hit a right cross that ended in a goal after Éderson's weak response. After 47 minutes at a good pace despite the rain and humidity, Barça went to the locker room winning 2-1.

City equalized the actions again after the break

Hansi Flick brought on Álex Valle, Antonio Fernández and Quim Junyet at halftime for Héctor Fort, Julián Araujo and Vitor Roque. Guardiola, for his part, sat Éderson and Haaland to put Ortega and Perrone. After a quarter of an hour with a lot of intensity and a more dominant City, Grealish took advantage of a good filtered pass from Kovacic in the 61st minute, after a good start by the Croatian from his own half, to shoot Iñaki Peña with a powerful left foot.

With the score at 2-2, the Barça coach made a triple substitution to seek the reaction. Lewandowski, Noah Darvich and Astralaga by Pau Víctor, Pablo Torre and Iñaki. Guardiola also refreshed his lineup with four variants, mostly youth players from the reserve team. The match dropped in intensity in the final stretch, with Barça betting on long balls as their main weapon to hurt the 'sky blue' background.

To complete the feast of changes, Flick gave minutes to Balde, Romeu, Iñigo and Andrés Cuenca, while Luke Mbete also joined City along with Micah Hamilton in the same window. Without much time for the lineups to take shape again, the match lacked any dangerous actions in the final minutes and both were satisfied with the tie, thus awaiting the penalty shootout.

Already in the fate of maximum penalties, the Blaugrana were much superior and scored their first four, while those from Manchester missed the first two and ended up losing with the fourth and final penalty scored by Toni Fernández. Barça will continue its American tour this Saturday against Real Madrid, while the 'cityzens' will do the same against Chelsea that same day to close their preseason.