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Manchester City are still awaiting their first win of preseason, after being beaten by Barcelona on penalties, in a match that was delayed for more than an hour after a storm in Orlando.
More than 63,000 fans were present for the sell-out clash but were forced to try to shelter from the conditions, as kick-off was delayed for 80 minutes.
Both sides were still missing players, following this summer’s European Championship, but one player who missed out in Jack Grealish was on the scoresheet as the game finished 2-2 after 90 minutes. Pau Victor gave Barcelona the lead before England youth midfielder Nico O’Reilly, 19, equalised, for Pep Guardiola’s side against his former one.
Grealish, who admitted he was “heartbroken” to miss out on the England squad, then levelled things up once more after Pablo Torre had restored Barcelona’s lead. Penalties followed but it was the Spanish side who were victorious, winning 4-1 after both Kalvin Phillips and Jacob Wright had their shots saved. The defeat was the third in a row for City, who have also been beaten by AC Milan and Celtic, but Guardiola is taking the positives.
“Every game we are getting better - our condition is getting better,” he said. “Rico [Lewis], again, thank you so much, Oscar [Bobb], Nico [O’Reilly]... all. Kalvin [Phillips] made an excellent performance today.
“Josko [Gvardiol] the first minutes, Kova [Mateo Kovacic] the first minutes, so yeah that’s really good.”
City face Chelsea next on Saturday but before then the Blues take on Mexican side Club America tonight, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in contention to make his first Chelsea appearance.
The midfielder joined for £30m from Leicester City at the beginning of July but is yet to feature due to injury. Chelsea are another side looking for their first win of the US tour, after drawing with Wrexham and losing 4-1 at the hands of Celtic.
Speaking ahead of the game head coach Enzo Maresca said: “Club America are a team who are already competing in their competition so for sure they would want to be ahead of us in that kind of thing but we have to follow our way, follow our process on the ball and off the ball in the way we want to be once the season starts.”
Liverpool and Arsenal are also in action tonight when they meet at the home of the Philadephia Eagles.
There will be no new faces for Liverpool, but they are still without several first-team players, who are yet to report back for preseason.
For Arsenal, manager Mikel Arteta has hinted that new signing Riccardo Calafiori could make his debut just days after signing from Serie A side Bologna.
