Barcelona 6-1 Alaves: Flick's side get back on track

Raphinha and Lamine Yamal both scored a brace as Barcelona got back to winning ways with a 6-1 rout of Alaves in LaLiga.

Fermin Lopez also starred with a goal and two assists, and Anthony Gordon capped the victory as Hansi Flick's side bounced back from losses to Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid to move back to the top of the LaLiga table.

It took Barcelona just eight minutes to break the deadlock, with Fermin latching onto Pedri's throughball and putting it on a plate for Raphinha to emphatically bury into the net from close range.

Abde Rebbach, Angel Perez and Lucas Boye all saw chances go begging for Alaves before Fermin arrowed in from an impossibly tight angle after being set up by Yamal in the 23rd minute.

Yamal pushed for a goal himself, but fired wide before he was thwarted by Antonio Sivera, but the goalkeeper was helpless on Raphinha's second goal 41 minutes in. Fermin won possession in midfield and slid it through for the Brazilian, who curled a lovely finish past Sivera while one-on-one.

But Yamal would get on the scoresheet in the first minute of first-half stoppage time, drilling a low shot from the edge of the box into the bottom-left corner.

Barcelona continued to dominate after the break but took until the 64th minute to add to their tally. Gabriel Jesus, who had only just come off the bench, slid it through for Yamal, whose chip bounced over the line before the offside flag went up, though the goal was given following a VAR review.

The scoring was not done there, though, with Gordon coming off the bench to beat Ander Guevara for pace as he raced in behind before lifting a lovely chip over Sivera in the 81st minute.

Barcelona could not hold out for a clean sheet, however, as Mariano Diaz latched onto a poor Rodri backpass to round his defender and slot past Joan Garcia for a consolation three minutes later.

Barcelona get back in the groove

After a perfect start to the season, it looked like it was going to be tough to stop Barcelona, but those two defeats in the space of six days brought them crashing back down to earth.

They put that behind them in style, though, marking Flick's 100th victory as Barcelona head coach across all competitions in the best way they could. He took just 130 games to reach that landmark, with only Luis Enrique (126) doing so quicker.

The result is perhaps no surprise given their stunning scoring record both this season and at Camp Nou.

Barcelona have now scored in each of their last 37 home games in LaLiga (114 goals), their longest scoring run at home in the competition since 2014 (56 games, 193 goals).

Raphinha is key to that run this term - he has scored 15 goals in 10 LaLiga matches in 2026-27, the highest tally of any player in Europe's top five major leagues. 

Only Cristiano Ronaldo in 2014-15 (18) netted more across his first 10 games of a season in the competition in the 21st century.

And Yamal also continued his strong start, having three goal contributions in a single match for Barcelona for the fifth time across all competitions, with all of those instances coming in 2026. With 23 goal involvements (12 goals, 11 assists), he has the most goal involvements of any player in the top five European leagues in 2026-27.