their debuts as the Catalans beat Vissel Kobe 3-1 in a preseason friendly match on Sunday.Less
Two new FC Barcelona first team stars scored on their debuts as the Catalans beat Vissel Kobe 3-1 in a preseason friendly match on Sunday.
There were doubts that Hansi Flick’s men would even take the plane to the Far East after a promoter dispute came to the forefront ahead of the weekend.
On Friday, however, Barca did indeed head to Asia where it is scheduled to play three friendlies in total.
The first of those fixtures is against Blaugrana legend Andres Iniesta’s first team after leaving Barca in 2016, Vissel Kobe, and his fellow former La Masia pupil opened the scoring on 33 minutes amid Japanese fans getting the chance to see Lamine Yamal with the number 10 on his back.
After a slip up at the back by Cubarsi, though, the hosts equalized past the only debutant in new goalkeeper Joan Garcia ahead of half time.
During the interval, Flick changed all 11 players which also meant that the likes of Marcus Rashford, Roony Bardghji and Dro Fernandez got their maiden minutes in the first team.
While Rashford came close and his shot saved, though, both Bardghji and Fernandez enjoyed dream debuts by getting on the scoresheet in the 77th and 88th minutes respectively to seal a 3-1 win.
While Bardghji cooly terminated a move involving Robert Lewandowski, Fernandez had to concentrate his best to volley a shot into the far bottom corner after a poor clearance and caused SPORT to say that a “star is born”.
Unfortunately for them, two other Fernandez boys in Guillermo and Toni couldn’t off the bench, but they are sure to feature at some other point of the tour.
While Wojciech Szczesny replaced Joan Garcia, Diego Kochen wasn’t introduced at any part of the proceedings as the third shotstopper in the squad.
As we know, Marc-Andre ter Stegen isn’t part of the team in Asia after once again falling to a back injury which will require surgery.
FC Barcelona will now head to Korea
After wrapping up its commitments in Japan, FC Barcelona will now head to South Korea. It will have a few days rest ahead of taking on FC Seoul on July 31 at 13.00 PM, and then meeting Daegu FC on August 4.