The Barcelona ogre was back in business. Author of a flawless performance in La Liga, the Catalan club returned to the Spanish championship this Saturday with the reception of Getafe with the ambition of continuing this thunderous start to the season. Raphinha, the man with 14 goals in 8 games, was certainly not there, preserved after being slightly injured with Brazil, but Hansi Flick could count on the majority of his squad (De Jong, Bardaghji and Christensen were also out). Even Joan Garcia made his return after a month of convalescence and started with Koundé to his right, Garcia and Martin in front of him. Rodri, Olmo and Gavi also started in support of the trio Yamal, Gordon and Gabriel Jesus, author of his first start.
12th in the standings before the start of this match, José Bordalas’ men looked like expiatory victims. This was very (too?) quickly confirmed in this one-sided match a very large part of the time. From the first situation during the 2nd minute, Gordon eliminated Gudelj at the edge of the area then hooked Martin to deceive Soria with a deflected shot (1-0, 2nd). Not content with having already opened the score, Barça continued its domination and this time Soria took out the English winger’s cross that Olmo failed to touch by a matter of millimeters (14th). The goalkeeper still had to work on this distant attempt from Garcia, which almost surprised him (19th).
Jules Koundé’s perfect evening
Getafe had the greatest difficulty getting out of their own half but still managed to react with this curling shot from Azon well captured by Garcia (26th). Still insufficient to raise doubts about the Blaugranas, who even doubled the stake on a solo number from Gabriel Jesus, author of a cross shot by cutting into the axis (2-0, 30th). Before the break, Yamal (39th) and even Koundé (43rd), who became the most capped Frenchman in the club’s history, had opportunities to widen the gap even further. Returning from the locker room, Barça resumed its march forward but at a piano pace. Mojica even tried from afar (54th), while Dani Olmo responded with a cross shot pushed back by Soria (57th).
Flick waited until the hour mark to make his first changes and restart the playing time with the entries of Fermin Lopez and Pedri in place of Gavi and Olmo. Barça took the opportunity to establish their domination of the ball, while the entries of Bernal and Adeyemi, then Abdelkarim, showed to what extent the Culés had a much superior bench. On a corner taken between Pedri and Yamal, the favorite for the next Ballon d’Or distributed a perfect cross for Koundé, who emerged like a fox from the surfaces (3-0, 73rd). In the end, all that was missing was Lamine Yamal’s goal to experience a perfect evening. The world champion lacked precision in the last gesture like this final situation (87th). Before returning to the C1 and a trip to Galatasaray, Barça takes 5 steps ahead of Atlético.
