Barcelona remain perfect to begin the season and have made it six wins out of six in La Liga thanks to a very entertaining 7-2 victory at home to Racing Santander on Wednesday night. The Blaugrana produced another brilliant attacking display, and Raphinha’s hat-trick along with two spectacular goals from João Cancelo and one each from Gabriel Jesus and Lamine Yamal clinched three more points for the leaders on a rainy night at Camp Nou.
Barça played an absolutely
scintillating first half, with a sublime attacking display filled with great passing, movement and some outstanding goals. They could have easily had six or seven, and it was somewhat disappointing that they only scored four first half goals.
João Cancelo got the party started with a sensational long-distance strike that went in off the crossbar, and Raphinha made it 2-0 after winning and scoring a penalty. Barça conceded a soft goal and Maguette Gueye gave the visitors some temporary hope, but Cancelo quickly answered with another fantastic long-range goal and Raphinha also doubled his tally thanks to a wonderful assist from Dani Olmo.
But the Blaugrana had many other great moments in attack, with Karim Adeyemi, Olmo, Andreas Christensen all missing several big chances while Lamine Yamal had a golden opportunity but missed from the penalty spot just before the break.
The halftime whistle came to end a spectacular half of football from the home team, who looked in the mood to add more in the final period.
Barça were 4-1 up and decided not to take many risks to start the second half, and were more interested in keeping the ball and not allowing chances on the counter rather than going all out for more goals.
The Catalans were cruising and the visitors offered very little threat, but an inexplicable mistake by Wojciech Szczesny gifted Racing a second as Yassir Zabiri stole the ball from the backup keeper, who came on for Joan Garcia at the break, and passed it into an open net at the hour mark.
Barça responded right away as Adeyemi won a penalty for the second time on the night, and Raphinha completed his hat-trick from the spot to restore Barça’s three-goal lead. The captain was given a great applause by the crowd as he was replaced by Gabriel Jesus, and the new signing also found the net with a beautiful finish after an assist from Yamal.
Lamine deserved a goal after being very unlucky on the night, and he finally found the net in the 89th minute thanks to a sensational solo run from Adeyemi, who received the ball in his own half and ran all the way into the box to gift Yamal a tap-in for Barça’s seventh on the night.
The final whistle came to end an amazing night of football at Camp Nou, with Barça “only” scoring seven when they could have easily been on double digits. The attack remains on fire, but the defense conceded two really dumb goals again in what was the only real blemish on the performance.
But this team remains wildly entertainment and very dominant, and it’ll be very, very hard to stop this attack this season. Well done, boys!
