Pau Victor scored twice as Barcelona maintained their unbeaten record in pre-season, beating rivals Real Madrid 2-1 to give Hansi Flick his maiden El Clasico triumph.<\/p>\n
Victor scored twice either side of half-time with two instinctive finishes inside the area, with\u00a0Nico Paz scoring late on for Madrid to set up a nervy final 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
But Barca, who beat Manchester City on penalties earlier this week, were able to hold on\u00a0in front of a sell-out crowd in New York.<\/p>\n
The game\u00a0was suspended for an hour after a wild storm around MetLife Stadium and when play continued, Barcelona\u00a0showed Real why they won’t have it all their own way in La Liga again this season.<\/p>\n
Despite Madrid dominating possession, their opponents created the better chances and took the lead three minutes before the break when Robert Lewandowski’s header found Victor to finish from close range.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old would grab his second of the game in the 54th minute, sliding in to bundle Alex Valle’s teasing delivery beyond the grasp of\u00a0Thibaut Courtois.<\/p>\n
Carlo Ancelotti’s side would get themselves on the scoresheet eight minutes from time when\u00a0Arda Guler’s corner kick found an unmarked Paz to head the ball home.<\/p>\n
Madrid pushed to find an equaliser with Vinicius Junior going close, but Barcelona were able to hold on to take the first El Clasico of the season.<\/p>\n
Data Debrief: Victor to replace Lewandowski up front?<\/strong><\/p>\n Having scored eight\u00a0goals less than Madrid in La Liga last season, Barcelona are keen for more firepower, and they may have found the answer in Victor.<\/p>\n The Spaniard impressed again for Flick’s side, registering the most shots (six), most shots on target (four), and touches in the opposition box (five) than anyone on the pitch.<\/p>\n Barcelona ended the contest with an expected goals (xG) tally of 2.52, with Victor contributing 1.57 to that total during his impressive showing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pau\u00a0Victor\u00a0continued\u00a0to\u00a0shine\u00a0as\u00a0his\u00a0two\u00a0goals\u00a0helped\u00a0Barcelona\u00a0edge\u00a0rivals\u00a0Real\u00a0Madrid\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0first\u00a0El\u00a0Clasico\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0season. Pau Victor scored twice as Barcelona maintained their unbeaten record in pre-season, beating rivals Real Madrid 2-1 to give Hansi Flick his maiden El Clasico triumph. Victor scored twice … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2759,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions\/2759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}