The preseason El Clasico

On Saturday, Robert Lewandowski made his Barcelona debut in a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in a pre-season-friendly in Las Vegas. Barcelona remains undefeated in preseason and has won their second straight match on the US tour thanks to a narrow 1-0 victory over Real Madrid. Barcelona continued their preseason in the United States with a win in the overseas version of El Clasico against Real Madrid, thanks to a superb goal from rookie Raphinha.

A superb goal by Raphinha decided the outcome of a highly anticipated preseason El Clasico as Barcelona beat Real Madrid in a tight match. The new signing scored the game’s only goal as Barcelona beat Real Madrid in the season’s first Clasico. Real Madrid had much more ball in the second half, but Catalan giants Barcelona also found more concrete scoring opportunities. It was 1-0 for Barça, and the Catalans seemed threatening to score more. At half-time, a great first half showed Barcelona in the lead and promised an excellent second half, albeit with very different teams.

Second-half substitutes Memphis Depay and Ousmane Dembele had a chance to widen Barcelona‘s lead, but thanks to heroic defence and an experienced goalkeeper, the final score was 1-0. The last minutes of an excellent first half was interesting enough as Real Madrid was looking for a draw but remained open to Barça counterattacks. The Catalan club missed at least three great chances to kill the match on the counterattack.

Substitute Marco Asensio hit Real Madrid’s best shot, while Thibaut Courtois made a series of saves in the final as Barcelona topped a crowd of 61,299. It was only nominally friendly when Barcelona and Real Madrid met in El Clasico on Saturday night in front of a sold-out crowd at the Loyalty Stadium.

The start was partly due to Barcelona being farther on their preseason journey than rivals Real Madrid as they returned to training earlier than their rivals and also because Barcelona had the world-class No. 9 in the attack. However, Robert Lewandowski debuted with No. 12, while Real Madrid left Karim Benzema out of the day’s squad and decided to start with Eden Hazard as the centre forward.

It became evident after ninety minutes that El Clasico would never be friendly. Even though nothing was at risk, both sides competed as if it were their final game. The game featured reckless challenges, disagreements, fights, and high-quality football. Without Thibaut Courtois, the Catalans may have had at least four goals. Barcelona is unbeaten after three preseason games. There are many things to take from the Blaugranas’ performance, as no player performed poorly, and on that point, let us run the rule over Xavi’s men.