Juventus, Barcelona draw 2-2 in US friendly
Juventus, Barcelona draw 2-2 in US friendly: Tuesday’s preseason friendly between Barcelona and Juventus in the United States took place in Dallas and ended in an entertaining 2-2 draw.
Both Ousmane Dembele and Moise Kean scored a pair of goals for their respective teams in the match.
After 34 minutes of play at the Cotton Bowl, the French winger Dembele scored the game’s first goal for Barcelona. He took the ball past Juventus players Juan Cuadrado and Sandro before beating Wojciech Szczesny in goal for Juventus to put the score 1-0.
But Juventus responded just five minutes later with Cuadrado, a Colombian wing-back, making amends with a precise low cross that found Kean, who tapped in the goal past Marc-Andre ter Stegen, the goalie for Barcelona.
However, Barcelona was soon back in front again, and once again Dembele scored the goal by capitalizing on sloppy defending from the other team.
Fault
Cuadrado was at fault once again, as Dembele was able to sneak past the South American’s covering tackle and then cut past Manuel Locatelli to shoot past Szczesny for a 2-1 lead. Cuadrado’s error allowed Dembele to score.
During the break in play, Barcelona head coach Xavi Hernandez made a number of substitutions, one of which saw Dembele replaced by the new Brazilian signing Raphina.
The goalkeeper, Szczesny, was able to save the long-range shot that the former striker for Leeds fired off, but it went well over the crossbar.
Rebound
In spite of Barcelona’s strong start to the second half, it was Juventus who scored the following goal with Kean tapping away a rebound in the 52nd minute after slick approach play by Denis Zakaria and Locatelli.
Barcelona came the closest to scoring the game’s first goal, and they came near twice in a matter of seconds on minute 68 when they hit the woodwork twice.
A curling free kick taken by Raphina shook the crossbar, and then Ansu Fati’s curling effort from the edge of the box cannoned back off the post when it rebounded from the initial shot.
That was the closest that either team got to breaking the deadlock, as Robert Lewandowski, the newest player to join Barcelona, struggled to make much of an impression before being taken out of the game in the middle of the second half.