After scraping through and struggling at home, Barcelona finally let loose to remain perfect in the Spanish La Liga with a 5-0 win over Levante as Lionel Messi did score but once again looked at his best when setting up Neymar and Sandro, while Pedro and Ivan Rakitic scored as well.
This might be a somewhat new side of Barcelona that relies a bit too much on young players, but they’ve yet to concede a goal in their four wins so far this season, and even though sometimes it doesn’t flow as well as it did during the great years from 2009 to 2011, it seems to be developing into something special.
The first goal came in the 34th minute as Messi once again showed his passing skills by dropping back and feeding Neymar, putting the Brazilian in a one on one situation. Just before half time Ivan Rakitic scored a rocket of a rebound from outside the box, making Messi’s penalty miss seem less important all of a sudden.
From that moment on the struggles disappeared. Barcelona got their third goal as Sandro went on the scoresheet. Sergio Busquets fed Messi with a wonderful through ball, moving onward to Sandro and make it a three goal lead.
Six minutes later a brilliant exchange of passing with Jordi Alba and Sandro Ramirez Pedro was left alone in the box to look a little bit less frustrated than usual.
Lionel Messi finally got the goal he deserved after a huge mistake by Levante’s goalkeeper Jesus Fernandez, pretty much throwing the ball right into Messi’s feet, although the Argentine complicated things a bit before finally scoring.