Samuel Eto'o scored two goals and Xavi Hernandez added a goal and two assists to lead Barcelona to a 6-2 win over the New York Red Bulls in an international friendly on Wednesday night.
Barcelona won the match handily despite playing without star Lionel Messi.
The match came several hours after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Barcelona could keep Messi from playing for his native Argentina in the upcoming Olympics in Beijing.
During a news conference after the match, Guardiola did not want to comment on what the club planned to do next or what Messi intended to do about the ruling, saying he wanted to first discuss the matter with his player.
“After I talk to him, then I'll talk to (the media)," Guardiola said. "I have my opinion on it, but I want to talk to him first, then I will tell the world. I won't say anything about it until I speak with him."
When asked if he tried to reach out to Messi, who has already joined the Argentine national team in China, Guardiola said, "Right now, he's sleeping."
Barcelona took command early, scoring twice during a 20-second stretch and jumping out to a 4-1 lead at the half.
“It's not normal for us to score so many goals," Guardiola said. “We have to be careful because we created so many chances and, if we try to continue to prepare that way, we could be in a little bit of trouble. We just want to get a good mentality as a group."
Xavi Hernandez opened the scoring in the 17th minute when he beat Red Bulls goalie Jon Conway with a header off a cross from Daniel Alves.
Twenty seconds later, Eto'o got his first goal of the match when he got past the Red Bulls defense, took a pass from Hernandez on stride and beat Conway.
The lead grew to 3-0 when Rafael Alverz Marquez deflected a cross from Hernandez with his head, and the misdirected shot sailed past Conway in the 24th minute.
New York got on the board in the I 30th minute, when Seth Stammler
scored an unassisted goal. But Barcelona answered in the 43 rd minute when Eto'o took a give-and-go from Alexander Hleb, then manoeuvred his way past two defenders and beat Conway.
Barcelona's offensive output bothered Red Bulls coach Juan Carlos Osorio.
“This was a very difficult game for us to handle against one of the best teams in the world," he said. “It was impossible for us to control the game, never mind trying to dominate. This was an example of the best players playing at their best. We tried to control the game and it was impossible.”
Barcelona replaced six of its 11 starters as the second half began, but the Red Bulls did not fare much better against the replacements.
New York narrowed the lead to 4-2 when Jorge Rojas scored on a rebound off a crossing shot by Jeff Parke in the 60th minute.
Barcelona closed out the scor-
ing with goals by Jeffren Suarez in the 80th minute and Pedro in the 86th minute against Red Bulls backup goalie Caleb Patterson-Sewell.
“In general, we played pretty good," Guardiola said. "We can go back home happy with the way we played. We created scoring chances and we didn't have any injuries."
Osorio, whose team plays DC United in Major League Soccer on Sunday, said he would try to take some positives from the matchup with Barcelona.
"I’m sure there will be positives, but it's very difficult to find them right now,” Osorio said.
"I just hope our players can grow from this.” he added. "It hurts me very much, but we couldn't do anything differently — we played a very strong team. I still think it was a great opportunity to play them and I want our young players to get a chance to play in games like this."