It's 11 matches, 11 wins as Hansi Flick's Barcelona continue their perfect start to the season by defeating Real Betis 5-2. Who else but Lamine Yamal opened the scoring? In his age-19 season, he's taking a step forward despite already being a global superstar, which is scary for the rest of the world.
Flick's men have dispatched every team in their path, and even that level of dominance doesn't do justice to what Barcelona have done this season. Barcelona executed their summer transfers to perfection, and while it's too early to begin discussing a perfect season, it's clear that they have the best attack in the world, and it isn't particularly close. Raphinha missed their last three matches due to injury, and the club didn't miss his 14 goals in all competitions, winning each match by three goals.
It was slightly tougher facing Manuel Pellegrini's Real Betis, but if a team has to score four goals to have a chance of beating Barcelona this season, it brings an immense amount of pressure. Betis are off to an excellent start to the season with six wins in nine LaLiga matches, but they've scored 23 fewer goals than Barcelona. Yes, you read that correctly: 23 fewer goals.
In fact, no LaLiga team has come within 20 goals of matching Barcelona's 39 goals in nine games. While they've gotten off to an impressive start to the season, it's also worth looking at how they've done it. Over the summer, Barcelona added Anthony Gordon, Karim Adeyemi, Gabriel Jesus and Rodri as they've finally gotten to a point where they can spend money again.
Not only have the new attackers added speed in transition, but Rodri has also marshaled the defense so the squad is caught out in transition less often. Those new signings have also accounted for seven LaLiga goals between them and have also given Flick serious depth to rotate while also competing on multiple fronts. While it's true Barcelona are still conceding goals with Rodri in midfield due to their open play style, only five teams have conceded fewer goals than Barcelona, they don't need to have a stout defense, just one that's good enough to let their historic attack go to work.
Keeping things in line is what will help this team contend for a Champions League crown, which is still the goal. Weirdly, last season was a down season for Lamine Yamal as he missed time with injuries and was "only" involved in 27 LaLiga goals. Now he has scored eight and assisted six more in only nine games played as he's reaching yet another level.
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