Despite losing to Napoli in Geneva, Luis Enrique took a lot of positives out of Wednesday’s match. Here’s a look at some of the key points.
- Claudio Bravo became the fourth player to make his Barça debut this summer. The Chilean follows on from Ter Stegen, Mathieu and Rakitic.
- But it wasn’t the first time Bravo has played at the Stade de Geneve. He was in goal for Chile for a friendly with Spain in September 2013 that ended 2-2.
- Only the keeper and Martín Montoya played for 90 minutes. In Nice, Marc-André ter Stegen was the only player to get a full game, and the entire eleven changed against Huelva.
- In Geneva, 10 of the 11 starters were from the first team, the only exception being Barça B’s Munir, who came close to scoring twice.
- But by the end of it, there were only four first team players left on the pitch (Bravo, Montoya, Sergi Roberto and Deulofeu) and seven from the reserves (Bagnack, Samper, Ié, Halilovic, Grimaldo, Adama and Sandro).
- Iniesta started as captain, and passed the armband over to Bartra when he was substituted, who in turn handed it to Montoya for the last fifteen minutes of the game.
- This was the first time the team had worn the new first kit for the 2014/15 season. Against Huelva and Nice they had worn the crimson coloured second strip.
