Basel 2-5 Barcelona: Yamal returns from the World Cup

Barcelona beat FC Basel 5-2 at St. Jakob-Park on Sunday in their latest pre-season friendly, but the real headline was Lamine Yamal’s comeback. The 18-year-old made his first appearance since winning the World Cup with Spain — and marked it with a goal. The other standout was 18-year-old Jesse Bisiwu, who came off the bench to score twice.

Kick-off was at 4:30pm CEST. Barcelona took the lead through Karim Adeyemi, who finished off a Raphinha assist, but 17-year-old Jean Doucouré levelled for Basel before the break. Hamza Abdelkarim, scoring his third goal of the preseason, restored Barça’s lead after the interval.

With ten minutes left, a foul on Jules Koundé inside the box gave Barcelona a penalty. Yamal, who had come on in the 65th minute alongside Dani Olmo for his first minutes since the World Cup, stepped up and converted it. Basel hit back with a penalty of their own, converted by Kazeem Olaigbe, but the closing stages belonged to Bisiwu. The Belgian winger, signed from Club Brugge for around €8 million last month, curled home a stunning finish before adding a simple tap-in set up by Yamal to make it 5-2.

Notably absent from the squad were Pedri and Gavi. According to Mundo Deportivo, this isn’t injury-related — it’s a deliberate call by Hansi Flick’s staff to bring both midfielders back up to full intensity gradually rather than risk them in friendlies at this stage. Frenkie de Jong and Roony Bardghji remain out through injury. Meanwhile, Dani Olmo, Jules Koundé and Pau Cubarsí all got their first minutes of the preseason, and summer signing Anthony Gordon (€70m from Newcastle) made his first start for the club.

It’s Barcelona’s penultimate test before the season starts — the Joan Gamper Trophy against Al Ahly comes on Wednesday, and the La Liga opener is away at Elche on Sunday, August 23.

The friendly result itself doesn’t matter much, but the numbers do. Barcelona paid around €8 million for Bisiwu, and he already has two preseason goals to show for it. Compare that to the €100 million the club was reportedly willing to put on the table for Julián Álvarez, or the €65 million bid for Rodri — both of which have produced plenty of headlines and nothing else so far. Sometimes the best signing of the summer is the one nobody was talking about.