Sergiño Dest Scores in Champions League for Barcelona; Konrad Makes Club Debut
Sergiño Dest's first goal in a Barcelona shirt came on the Champions League stage.
The U.S. men's national team fullback scored the go-ahead goal for Barcelona at Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday, giving his shorthanded side a 1-0 lead.
Playing without the rested Lionel Messi and Frenkie de Jong and the injured Gerard Pique and Sergi Roberto, Barcelona turned to the Dutch-American for its breakthrough. Dest started the sequence by laying off a pass for Pedri and then surged forward on the right side of the box. He practically took the ball off Martin Braithwaite's foot before turning a shot inside the far post for the 52nd-minute finish.
In scoring, Dest became the first U.S. international to tally a goal for Barcelona and the 10th to score in the Champions League, joining Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Maurice Edu, Jovan Kirovski, DaMarcus Beasley, Sacha Kljestan, Jermaine Jones and Fabian Johnson. It makes him the second-youngest American to score in the Champions League behind Pulisic, according to stats outfit Opta.
The goal was just Dest's third as a professional (the other two came in the KNVB Beker Dutch cup competition for Ajax), and it helped secure Barcelona's place in the last 16 with two games to spare with a win. Braithwaite scored a pair of insurance goals for Barcelona soon after, and Dest missed a chance at a spectacular second after firing over the bar from long distance late in the match. Antoine Griezmann's fine late finish polished off the 4-0 victory.
Dest wasn't the only American in a Barcelona shirt on Tuesday, with Konrad de la Fuente on the bench to start before the 19-year-old Miami native came on in the 83rd minute to make his first-team debut in place of Trincão.
In doing so, he became the seventh American to appear in the Champions League this season, setting a new high.