Just why were Manchester City in Barcelona playing a friendly when the season has already begun?
It is a question that has been asked by supporters ever since the game was announced, and has spawned dozens of SEO pieces from websites over the last week all trying to provide an answer. Primarily, it wasn't for footballing reasons but for a good cause with all the money raised going to Juan Carlos Unzue - a well-respected former goalkeeper-turned-coach in Spanish football who won the Treble as staff with Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique.
Unzue has the debilitative ALS disease, known as motor neurone disease (MND) in the UK, that attacks the nervous system and brain and is currently incurable. It is a horrible illness, and it has taken the collective might of Unzue and FC Barcelona to make some headway in raising awareness and money towards tackling it; 91,062 tickets sold for this friendly that came complete with a performance from a Spanish pop sensation will have helped greatly.
Also read: Man City player ratings with Julian Alvarez lively
Guardiola has left himself open to criticism given he so regularly (and rightly) moans about the busy fixture schedule and the City hierarchy have not appeased those supporters who think they are too soft on Barcelona because of their shared history - the Catalan club have openly pursued Bernardo Silva this summer with barely a peep of discontent from the Etihad. But the City manager is a loyal man and it became crystal clear that the Blues were the perfect opponents for this match precisely because of the ties with the man everyone was there to support; there are far worse causes to go out of your way for.
And despite it not being about the football, Guardiola and City have made it about the football. They have trained for two days at sister club Girona to enjoy some high-intensity training in the heat and bonding as a new squad settles in for a long season ahead of a match where there was absolutely no pressure on the players, just opportunities.
True to his word, the manager left out the majority of his first-team stars and - save for Ruben Dias and Kyle Walker - picked a line-up full of players with something to prove. Sergio Gomez and Kalvin Phillips made their first starts since joining, Rico Lewis and Cole Palmer gained invaluable experience, Julian Alvarez was allowed the No.9 role from the off and Walker was tried as a centre-back with Nathan Ake not fit enough to be named on the bench.
Lewis and Gomez, for different reasons, both looked more comfortable than they should at this stage of their City careers. The new signing and the 17-year-old mirrored their senior counterparts Walker and Joao Cancelo in pushing up alongside the defensive midfielder whenever they could, while where Gomez relished buccaneering runs on the ball Lewis embraced his defensive battles with Barcelona's slew of quality attackers.
This was a very strong Barcelona side, it should be noted. Frenkie de Jong, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ferran Torres, Raphinha and Jules Kounde were all in a starting XI from the home team that was far more experienced than their opponents.
This match was a friendly, but with the clubs in separate pots for the Champions League draw there is at least some chance that they could be back here in 10 days battling it out for supremacy in Europe's premier competition. If it was a game that City didn't need to play in pure footballing terms, it could yet prove very beneficial both individually and collectively.
Alvarez proved his poaching potential in the Community Shield when he came on and he will not get many easier goals than the one he had to open the scoring, Barcelona goalkeeper Inaki Pena dropping a routine ball at his feet four yards out for him to poke home. The Argentine was almost too embarrassed to celebrate as the crowd wondered how Wednesday night football had turned into Sunday league.
Stefan Ortega had started very well in light of pressure from the home team, saving well from Aubameyang and showing good distribution to break the Barcelona press with long, accurate hitting. Eight minutes after City took the lead though, as the half-hour approached, he saw an Aubameyang effort surprise him at the near post in a goal he will be disappointed to have conceded.
As far as homecomings go, this was far happier for Guardiola than when he returned in 2016 with City and lost 4-0 with Sergio Aguero benched and Claudio Bravo sent off. But if there were plenty of positives for the future, the manager knows from his time with both Barcelona and City that you are never far away from a potential problem at a big club.
City will brush off the De Bruyne error that led to the De Jong goal and the slack marking for Memphis Depay's goal after Palmer had equalised, yet if the match was for a greater cause, injury to Phillips in the second half threatens to be far more important to the Blues than the 3-3 scoreline. The former Leeds man signalled immediately to the bench after a smash to his forearm and looked in discomfort as he came off around the hour mark.
That sharpened the sense that any verdicts on the success of the trip will be saved for Saturday's home game with Crystal Palace - a bogey team under Guardiola who they face having dropped points last week at Newcastle - and the prognosis on the injury that Phillips sustained. In the 24-hour news cycle, potential long-term gains are convincingly outweighed by immediate setbacks.
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