Watch: Red Bull Salzburg 2-1 Barcelona, Match Review

Barcelona suffer their first defeat of pre-season to an impressive Salzburg side, who were by far the better side on the day, and played Ronald Koeman’s side off the park. Despite a rather even start, Salzburg soon began to dominate, and generated several clear cut chances, whereas Barcelona massively struggled to get any sort of hold on the game. Check out our full match review below:

Despite setting up in a back three, with Frenkie de Jong at the heart of defence, Barcelona had no defensive stability whatsoever, and the Austrian hosts could and perhaps should have been at least two goals up by half time. By the end of the 90 minutes, the 2-1 score line in favour of Salzburg flattered Barcelona if anyone.

A note worth making is that Salzburg are underway with their domestic season, and have therefore completed pre-season, so were expected to be in better physical condition than Barcelona today, although today’s performance suggested that Salzburg were not only superior in physical condition, but much more too.