After a slight shaky start, Barcelona overwhelmed Real Sociedad 5-1 behind a brace from Lionel Messi and goals from Pedro, Carles Puyol and the returning David Villa
Barcelona got off to a roaring start in the 4th minute with a patented Carles Puyol header goal off a corner kick. Four minutes later Real Sociedad equalized when Asier Illarramendi's quick pass found Gonzalo Castro on the right, behind the Barca defense. Castro beat Valdes to pull Sociedad back to 1-1...then Barca scored again. Seriously. Three minutes after Castro's equalizer, Lionel Messi decided to get a jump on the goal scoring race and take advantage of Ronaldo failing to score earlier against Valencia. Three goals in less than 12 minutes, not bad...but wait! There's more!
15th minute? Yeah, another goal and guess who...Messi. After his initial shot was blocked, it bounced to Pedro who re-centered the ball in front of Messi, who'd kept running, and he drilled a shot past Claudio Bravo. It then took an incredible 25 minutes for anyone to score again, I'm being sarcastic of course, but after setting such a high standard you can understand my feelings. Pedro got on the score sheet to give Barca a 4-1 lead at halftime, but the real praise goes to Cristian Tello who had a tremendous first half after getting a bit of a surprise start. Tello, showing some excellent vision, lobbed a perfectly placed pass over the Socieded box to Pedro who had been allowed to walk in on goal completely unmarked.
As for the second half, well it stayed 4-1 until late when David Villa, making his first return after suffering a broken leg last season, scored his first goal of the season off a nice assist from Andres Iniesta. Villa was pretty excited about the goal and was booked right after for excessive celebration. Considering his long road back from injury, we can cut him a little slack.
With Real Madrid drawing against Valencia in their opener, the victory by Barca gives them an early head start on their main rivals for the La Liga title.
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