Barcelona round off the third week of La Liga fixtures with a visit from Rayo Vallecano on Monday night.
Hansi Flick’s back-to-back top-flight champions have made a perfect start to the new campaign, rattling in seven goals without reply. Barcelona don’t have a senior striker and Lamine Yamal is enduring a mini existential crisis, but things have started pretty well.
The same cannot be said for Rayo Vallecano. Last season’s Conference League finalists lost their talismanic manager Iñigo Pérez to Villarreal over the summer, sold off two key defenders to the Premier League and were even forced to indefinitely move out of their stadium after an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the area. The club’s only two permanent recruits have cost a combined $2.4 million. Even this cash-strapped iteration of Barcelona don’t have to be so tight with the purse strings.
Set against this bleak backdrop, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Rayo have only been able to muster a single point from their first two league games. It would be an almighty surprise to see that tally bolstered against Barcelona.
Live Match Tracker
Play-by-Play
Match Momentum
Match Stats
Lineups
Match Summary
READ THE LATEST LA LIGA NEWS, ANALYSIS AND INSIGHT FROM SI FC
- Jonathan David Accepts Chance to Rebuild European Reputation Amid Canada’s Rise in Europe
- Six Transfer Sagas to Watch on Deadline Day
- Gabriel Jesus’s Record vs. Real Madrid: Barcelona Are Buying Los Blancos Bogeyman
- Transfer Rumors: Man Utd Plot Amad Sale; Liverpool’s Shock Estevao Approach
- Barcelona Player Ratings vs. Rayo Vallecano: First Special Lamine Yamal Night of the Season
