Saturday is
when the Catalans make their La Liga bow and when Real Betis are watching this
game as preparation they will be extremely worried. Barcelona have depth now
and seem more dangerous than ever...
For a few minutes Sevilla looked
like they were going to make a fight of this. And maybe they were. Jorge
Sampaoli isn't one to go down without at least swinging. But Arda Turan
had other ideas. Yes, you read that right.
Arda has had a reasonable pre-season and impressed on the left
wing, in Neymar's position, against Sevilla in the first leg of the Spanish
Super Cup final. But in this second leg, he put in the finest performance of
his time in Barcelona.
With a cool finish in the first half and a bombastic one in the
second, his goals put the game beyond Sevilla and earned Barcelona their 12th
victory in this competition.
It was not a perfect performance from the Turk, with the odd
misplaced pass showing he's not quite on the same wavelength as some of his team-mates,
but then again, nobody is on the same wavelength as Messi all the time.
He was the key to this performance as he is so often for
Barcelona, at the heart of almost every attack Barcelona made, with team-mates
spinning around him, executing quick-fire one-twos and dancing to his tune as
best they could.
Messi's dribbling was sensational, his vision, sensational, his
speed of thought, you guessed it, sensational. His performance bodes well for
the season ahead, and this was without his beloved strike partners.
Luis Suarez was rested by Luis Enrique, given Barcelona already
led Sevilla by two goals coming into this game, and there were several other
changes too.
All four new signings started, with varying degrees of success.
Lucas Digne was the best of them, not putting a foot wrong in defence and
growing more adventurous going forward, with his cross headed home by Messi for
the third goal.
Andre Gomes adapted well to Messi's game and exchanged a lot of
balls with the Argentine as Barcelona shimmied past Sevilla's midfield time and
time again.
Samuel Umtiti had a close to flawless game, but his hand was too
far away from his body when Mariano Ferreira struck a shot against it and the
referee awarded a penalty.
Claudio Bravo, though, denied Vicente Iborra with a fine save
down to his right, the highlight of a pristeen display from the Chilean, which
will be one to remember as he heads out of the door at Camp Nou.
Bravo is set to play at the weekend but after that Manchester
City will be his destiny, when Marc-Andre ter Stegen returns from injury.
With Barcelona's stopper in such imperious form, Sevilla had
little hope of getting back into the game. No hope, really, with Messi playing
spectacularly.
Gomes and Messi worked the ball well between them, with the
latter slipping in Arda, who finished neatly to open the scoring after nine
minutes.
Chances came and went, but it wasn't until the second half when
Barcelona doubled their lead. The first minute, in fact, when Arda swirled a
spectacular long-range strike over Sergio Rico and into the back of the net.
Gomes was involved again in the third goal, giving Digne a good
ball down the left, and the full-back crossed perfectly for Messi to nod home
the third.
The only sour note for Barcelona was Javier Mascherano picking
up an injury that forced this team to play the rest of the game with 10 men -
he suffered a minor hamstring strain and will be out for one week, giving
Umtiti the chance to debut in La Liga with Jeremy Mathieu also out of action.
Saturday is when the Catalans make their bow and when Real Betis
are watching this game as preparation they will be extremely worried. Barcelona
have depth now, and seem more dangerous than ever.
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