Barcelona close out US preseason tour with comfortable win over New York Red Bulls

Barcelona are on their way back to Catalonia after a comfortable 2-0 victory over New York Red Bulls closed out a successful preseason tour.

The Blaugrana made it three wins out of four matches by dispatching with NYRB and once again Xavi Hernandez will have been largely pleased with what he saw at the Red Bull Arena.

Dominating from the start, most of the match was played in the NYRB half and opportunities began to pop up with regularity. Most of them fell to Robert Lewandowski, but the Polish forward couldn’t find a way past Carlos Coronel.

Ousmane Dembele eventually broke the deadlock, being teed up by Raphinha on the run and firing the ball into the corner five minutes before half-time. In the second half, Lewandowski’s failure to score almost became the narrative as he peppered the goal with shots.

Eventually he came off and it would be Memphis Depay who added the second goal late on, taking advantage of a mix up in the NYRB defence to tap home.

Beyond Lewandowski’s travails, perhaps the most interesting detail was that Frenkie de Jong returned to midfield. Amid rumours about his future at Camp Nou, de Jong had played in defence in all of the previous friendlies, but looked at home as part of the midfield three while he was on the pitch.