Birmingham City 2-2 Barcelona (3-2 pens): Abdelkarim bags brace in hectic friendly defeat

Hamza Abdelkarim scored a brace on debut for Barcelona during their 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat to Birmingham City in pre-season.

The 18-year-old cancelled out August Priske's opener before giving Barca the lead in the second half, though Jhon Solis levelled at 2-2 for Birmingham at St. Andrew's, where Real Madrid star and former Blues player Jude Bellingham was in attendance.

Karim Adeyemi started brightly on his debut, running at the Birmingham defence at every opportunity, while Shane Kluivert, son of Barca legend Patrick and younger brother of Bournemouth winger Justin, saw the first chance of the game deflected wide of the target.

Chances continued to be created at both ends, with Priske first poking straight at Wojciech Szczesny from a cross before Andreas Christensen flashed a long-range effort narrowly past the left post on the half-hour mark.

Blues would take the lead in the 31st minute through Priske, who climbed above Jofre Torrents to head in from Alex Cochrane's whipped cross from the left wing, but their advantage lasted 11 minutes before Abdelkarim scored from the penalty spot, after drawing a foul off Christoph Klarer.

Birmingham went close to regaining the lead on the stroke of half-time, but Tomoki Iwata's header was pushed over by Szczesny, and it proved important as Barca went ahead on the hour after Abdelkarim reacted fastest when James Beadle parried a strike from Roony Bardghji.

However, Blues were level eight minutes later when Klarer won the initial header from a long free-kick and Jhon Solis converted past substitute goalkeeper Aron Yaakobishvili with a first-time finish.

Cochrane almost scored a winner for Birmingham in stunning fashion, but his volley cannoned off the crossbar and over in the 73rd minute, while Beadle made a double save in stoppage time to keep out Bardghji and Alex Gonzalez.

And Beadle proved to be the hero in the shoot-out, saving penalties from Bardghji and Brian Farinas, with the latter missing the deciding spot-kick for Barca.

Flick's youngsters struggle against physical Birmingham

Barca won the expected goals battle (xG) 1.88 to 1.16, though Birmingham will be wondering how they did not win this tie inside 90 minutes after rattling the woodwork late on.

Blues also created three big chances to Barca's two, while they capitalised on their physical presence as 1.01 of their xG came from set-piece scenarios, where Phil Neumann and Klarer were particularly dangerous.

Flick will not be too worked up by the loss, with this the Blaugrana's first official pre-season test, while many of their key players are yet to return after representing their countries at the World Cup.

However, Abdelkarim, who made four appearances for Egypt at the World Cup, took his chance to impress in pre-season before the likes of Ferran Torres returned to the side. He scored with both of his shots while also leading his team in duels won (7/15).

For Birmingham, meanwhile, this was their last pre-season match as they face Swansea City in the EFL Cup next Saturday, before starting their Championship campaign on August 15.