Raphinha let his goals do the talking after being omitted from the Ballon d’Or shortlist, striking twice as Barcelona eased to a 5-1 win over Feyenoord in the Champions League.
The Brazilian was a surprise omission from this week’s 30-strong list of candidates for the prestigious award but brushed any disappointment aside to continue his early season hot streak at a rain-soaked Camp Nou. The forward finished brilliantly in the third minute and added a second just before the hour mark to down the Eredivisie side and take his tally to eight goals in six outings at the start of the campaign.
The summer signing Karim Adeyemi produced a stunning finish, Lamine Yamal stroked a free-kick through a gap in the Dutch wall and recent arrival Gabriel Jesus opened his account for the club just two minutes after stepping off the bench.
There was little to celebrate for Giovanni van Bronckhorst on his Barça return but Sem Steijn gave the visiting fans something to enjoy when he poked in at far post late on.
“The most important thing is we are playing like a team, like one unit,” the Barcelona head coach, Hansi Flick, said. “We controlled the game, we are dominant and this is fantastic to see. This is our style and how we want to play.”
Ferran Torres scored a hat-trick and Ousmane Dembélé also starred as Paris Saint-Germain began their quest to win a third consecutive Champions League title by thrashing Slovan Bratislava 6-1 at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday.
Last year’s Ballon d’Or winner Dembélé had scored twice by the midway point of the first half in the French capital, and then set up Spain’s World Cup final hero Torres to make it 3-0 by the interval.
Torres, a close-season signing from Barcelona, added two more just after the restart to complete his hat-trick before the hour mark, with Suleiman Camara pulling one back for the Slovakian champions and Fabián Ruiz then sealing PSG’s win.
Elsewhere, Stuttgart’s Ermedin Demirovic struck a 12-minute first-half hat-trick to earn a 3-1 victory over Viking Stavanger.
after newsletter promotion
He opened the scoring after 20 minutes with a touch at the near post, but Viking, making their first appearance in the league phase of the Champions League, were level two minutes later when Zlatko Tripic finished a swift counter-attack with his left foot.
Demirovic quickly re-established the lead in the 26th minute and then completed the hat-trick with a hooked volley six minutes later. “For me personally it was the perfect start and also for the team as a whole,” Demirovic told Dazn.
Sporting Lisbon, quarter-finalists last season for the first time since 1983, fought back to see off Galatasaray 3-1 in Lisbon.