Barcelona 7-0 Levante: Barca crush Levante in their opening fixture

Messi stars again, when does he not?

Now it was simply a matter of time before Messi scored, and that was about nine minutes later. Again Pedro found himself in plenty of space, this time with enough room to have a go at the keeper, but taking a leaf out of Fabregas’ book, he unselfishly cut it back for Messi to score. If anything, it was a night of unselfish acts.

As the match progressed, Barca stamped their authority over the game and scored again and again at regular intervals to make it 6-0 by half time. It was all Messi as he pressed intensely to recover a ball near the right corner which resulted in the Dani Alves goal and curled a defense-splitting ball to assist Pedro’s goal. After a rather silly foul committed on Adriano which resulted in a penalty, Messi stepped up and scored his second of the evening. Probably to save Levante from more humiliation, in the second half, Barca stepped down a gear and although they still tried to score, the hunger to score was somewhat reduced, that is until Neymar came on.

Neymar came on in the 64th minute and had some lively moments, although none of them resulted in goals. His direct approach of taking on defenders, banking on his pace and skills, can be very crucial when more stubborn defences are encountered in the future.

Levante rarely troubled Valdes. After having a couple of sensational seasons considering the kind of over-aged squads they had, it looks like this could be the season when they stop defying everyone’s expectations. They gave up too easily after the first goal and were unusually poor in defence. These are early days indeed, but I have a feeling they will have a relegation battle on their hands sooner than later.

The Verdict

Yes, it was a good result for Barcelona. But as they say, it is only the three points that matter. They have an important Super Cup tie coming up in a couple of days against a much better team which will prove to be a much better litmus test for Martino’s Barca. And it doesn’t stop there, at least not for the next couple of weeks.

As mentioned in the season preview, Fabregas is looking very good under the new coach and his performance in this match was excellent too. And one other thing which was noticeable was the kind of intense high pressing from Barca that resulted in a number of good attacks and even a goal or two. Martino has been talking about this, about how the answer to Barca’s defensive worries is not a new defender, but the rediscovery of the kind of pressing that put Barca at the top a few years back. If that is indeed the case, it looks like the players are responding to their new coach well.

All in all, this was a good result, better than what was expected. However, we should not read too much into it. The real test is still far off.