Barcelona cancel Preston friendly after English side suffer squad problems | OneFootball

The FC Barcelona team is currently stationed in England as the club had organized a week-long training camp at the Saint George’s Park in Newcastle. In addition to this training camp, the Catalans had also scheduled two training games in the United Kingdom as a part of this tour.

The first of these games, against Birmingham City, was played two days ago, and ended in a 3-2 defeat for the Blaugranes in penalty shootout, after the game ended in a 2-2 draw.

The second of these games, against Preston North End, was scheduled to take place on Monday, and the Catalans’ tour was set to come to an end with this match. However, as Mundo Deportivo has reported, this game has been suspended because the English team had several first team players unavailable due to physical problems.

As a result, Preston were going to play this training match with a team mostly comprised of their academy players. However, Barcelona were looking to use this game as an opportunity to test Hansi Flick’s team in a competitive environment.

As this can no longer be achieved because of the absence of first team players for Preston, the Blaugranes have decided to modify their plans and hold a training session instead. However, this plan is also not yet finalized. The Catalans are also not ruling out the option of an early return to Barcelona.

For now, it remains to be seen what final decision the Blaugrana club will take in this regard. Even if this training game is cancelled, Hansi Flick will have several opportunities to test his team before the start of the next season, as they have a friendly game scheduled against Udinese and will also play the Joan Gamper Trophy game against the Egyptian side Al-Ahly in the coming weeks.