Vissel Kobe 0-2 Barcelona: Results, notes and reaction as Carles Perez shines to lift the Rakuten Cup

Replace Ousmane Dembélé offered an exciting spark to From Barcelona attack in the second half and it seemed that the French could provide the difference, but he was actually graduated from the academy Carles Pérez, who opened the scoring after a nice meeting with Malcom.

Carles Aleñá could have put the game to bed but he was trying to be too cute with his lousy effort and he was easily recovered by Maekawa, while Malcom was not cute enough to get power over the placement, but the crossbar had prevented him.

Pérez then scored his second goal of the game with just a few minutes left, shooting the ball out of the post at a sharp angle to complete the win and secure the game. Rakuten cup against Vissel Kobe.

Vissel Kobe

Player ranking

From XI: Maekawa (7); Fujitani (6), Dankler (7), Miya (6), Hatsuse (7); Yamaguchi (6), Samper (5), Iniesta (8); Goke (6), villa (6), Ogawa (6).

Substitutes: Nishi (6), Wellington (6), Watanabe (6), Osaki (6), Hashimoto (6), Masuyama (6), Nakasaka (6), Yasui (6), Tanaka (6).

Barcelona

Key discussion point

It looked like nothing more than a glorified training exercise throughout the first period, with Barcelona's attack lacking a real advantage over Vissel Kobe's defense.

But the introduction of Malcom, Ousmane Dembélé and especially Carles Pérez reversed the situation, even if the goals were still barely for Blaugrana.

Bring a first-half team composed almost exclusively of offensive midfielders widely used – Álex Collado and Rafinha were their makeshift wingers – Barcelona was a much more consistent threat after the break.

Player ranking

From XI: Ter Stegen (6); Semedo (7), Araujo (6), Lenglet (6), Alba (6); Puig (7), Busquets (6), Rakitic (7); Rafinha (6), Griezmann (7), Collado (7).