The US Tour by the numbers
FC Barcelona are heading home from a very useful trip to the United States. Two of the three games ended in draws and were decided by penalty shootouts, in Barça's favour against Man City but not in the one with AC Milan. And in between, a splendid 2-1 victory over Real Madrid. Here are ten top stats that emerged from the 270 minutes of football on American soil.
14
The number of players that were on a Barça preseason tour for the very first time. They were Vitor Roque, Héctor Fort, Pau Víctor, Diego Kochen, Unai, Marc Bernal, Gerard Martín, Noah Darvich, Guille Fernández, Andrés Cuenca, Toni Fernández, Sergi Domínguez, Quim Junyent and Alexis Olmedo.
29
Hansi Flick used no fewer than 29 different players in the three matches. Only Diego Kochen and Alexis Olmedo didn't get to play a single minute. Oriol Romeu is included in the number after featuring against Man City but he left the camp early and was later confirmed to have been loaned to Girona.
33
Such a high turnover pf players was because of the huge number of substitutions made by Hansi Flick, eleven per game.
2
Only two of those tourists started all three matches. They were Marc Casadó and Pau Víctor, who ended up being two of the most talked-about players.
241
The biggest total playing time granted to a single player was the 241 for Marc Casadó, with Pau Víctor second in the ranking. They're clearly two players that the German coach has taken a major interest in.
3
The number of goals scored on tour by Pau Víctor, one against Man City and a brace against Real Madrid. Not only that, but he was named MVP of both those matches, with Robert Lewandowski getting the award against Milan.
4
Barça have won four out of four of the Clásico encounters with Real Madrid on US soil. The series began in 2017 with a 3-2 win in Miami, followed in 2022 by a 1-0 win in Las Vegas and in 2023 by a 3-0 in Dallas before yet another victory this year, 2-1 in New Jersey.
48
In 270 minutes of football, Barça were only trailing for 48 of them, all against AC Milan, from the 10th to the 58th minutes, when Lewandowski levelled things up at 2-2.
196,728
A total of 196,728 spectators packed the stadiums for the three games. There were 63,237 against Man City, 82,154 against Real Madrid and 51,337 for the game with AC Milan.
10
The number of training sessions while the team was in the United States. There were three in Orlando and seven in Baltimore, with three days when there were workouts both in the morning and evening.