Barcelona survived a big scare to come from behind and get a 3-2 friendly victory over the A-League All Stars at Sydney’s Australia Stadium.
In front of 70,174 fans, the majority by Barcelona persuasion, All Stars, coached by Dwight Yorke, claimed an unlikely 2-1 advantage in the second half before being recovered twice in the last 20 minutes on Wednesday.
The selection of the best in League A, which played its first game since 2014, gave a good account of the Wellington winger, Reno Piscopo, who stood out after contributing a goal and witnessing defeat.
To be fair to the All Stars, this was not a second-tier Barcelona team, as five of Xavi’s starting line-ups included players who started Sunday’s defeat to Villarreal.
The All Stars were in the lead in the second half before giving up twice to Barcelona in the final minutes. (AAP: Brett Hemmings)
Among them were veteran Dani Alves and Sergio Busquets, who immediately flexed their muscles when Alejandro Balde forced Macarthur goalkeeper Filip Kurto to take action in the first five minutes.
Brisbane’s Jay O’Shea and Socceroos hopeful Jason Cummings had chances to put the All Stars ahead, but neither of them was able to beat Marc-André ter Stegen.
Barça dominated but could not penetrate in the first half hour to the point that the fans exploded in spontaneous interpretations of the Mexican wave to keep their minds occupied.
Concentration dropped momentarily for the All Stars when Central Coast defender Kye Rowles was defeated by Busquets and in three passes Ousmane Dembélé scored the first goal of the match.
It was a similar story two minutes after half time, but this time it was the All Stars who benefited.
Daniel Penha of Newcastle played a bent ball behind the Barça defense for Anthony Caceres to hit and, while his shot was stopped by substitute goalkeeper Aranau Tenas, a advancing Piscopo was able to hit home.
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The All Stars kept their feet in the throat with a second goal coming in the same way six minutes later.
This time Piscopo played and faced Adama Traoré of Western Sydney to give the Yorke team an unlikely 2-1 advantage.
Central Coast teenager Garang Kuol almost got all three when he played, but failed.
This would be the fall of the Yorke team, with All Stars substitute goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne unable to keep out Barcelona’s Adam Traoré, who drew with Barça with 20 minutes to go.
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The attack looked like Barça had started and advanced when the wonderful Ansu Fati muffled the ball in front of Redmayne from close range.
Kuol hit the crossbar in the final minutes but the All Stars failed to find a draw.
AAP
Posted 3 hours, 3 hours ago, Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 1:56 PM, updated 2 hours ago, 2 hours ago, Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 2:20 PM