The table moved before Barça kicked off

The useful thing about Sunday was that Barça arrived at Mestalla knowing exactly what the afternoon was worth. Real Madrid had lost 1–0 at Betis, Mbappé missing a penalty in stoppage time, and Atlético had been taken apart 3–0 at San Mamés. A win would not merely keep pace; it would make Barça outright leaders, and they won by five.

Fermín López made the first, scored the second and created Raphinha's third.

Lamine Yamal settled it after six minutes with the outside of his left foot, from an angle that should not have been available to him. He then had a second ruled out by a VAR check that took three minutes to find its offside. When he scored again late on he stood still rather than celebrate, assuming another review was coming. Fermín López made the first, scored the second and created Raphinha's third. That is a fuller afternoon than a scoresheet credits.

Raphinha now has six league goals in four matches, which settles the question of where he plays now that Barça have another centre-forward on the books.

Rodri's first start was the one untidy part of it. He almost gave Valencia a goal, was booked, hit the bar, and collided with Eric García badly enough that Jules Koundé had to come on before Flick withdrew him after the hour. Barça had enough control around him that none of it cost anything.

The club had already marked it as their last visit to Mestalla before Valencia move into the Nou Mestalla, which is history to close with a rout.

Sevilla away, on Saturday, was supposed to be the harder of the two opening matches, and Barça had it finished before the interval. Brugts scored inside ten minutes, Pina and Torrejón added two more in first-half stoppage time, and Vicky López got the fourth shortly after the restart. Two matches into Liga F, the Femení have scored nine and conceded nothing.

The spread of scorers is doing more work than the total.

The spread of scorers is doing more work than the total. Torrejón is the senior player who stayed and renewed at 36. Pina and Vicky are being handed a larger share of the attack than last season, and Brugts went straight into the eleven. Kerolin Nicoli and Renée van Asten arrived over the summer. Nobody was signed to take over from Alexia Putellas, or from Mapi León, Ona Batlle or Salma Paralluelo. The reply to the departures is arriving in the team sheet instead.

Pere Romeu, the head coach, extended the same idea with his substitutions. Patri Guijarro and Kika Nazareth came on, and Lúa Arufe, Elena Vizuete and Martina González took further minutes on top of the debuts handed out against Tenerife a week earlier. Both opponents so far have let him make those changes from comfort, which is the cheapest way to build a rotation and the least informative one. Atlético Madrid visit the Estadi Johan Cruyff on the weekend of 12 September, and that is the first time the choices will cost him something.

Koundé's introduction was forced on Flick by Eric García's injury. Everything after it was a choice, and this is the first time this season he has been able to make choices of that kind with an hour still to play. Marc Bernal replaced Rodri, Andreas Christensen replaced Cubarsí, and Karim Adeyemi replaced Anthony Gordon. Dani Olmo came on for Fermín and made Pedri's goal within minutes, and Gabriel Jesus took Pedri's place for his debut.

That bench did not exist last season, and the difference shows in what each change was for rather than in the number of them.

That bench did not exist last season, and the difference shows in what each change was for rather than in the number of them. Bernal can rest Rodri without pushing Pedri backwards into a job he is wasted in. Olmo and Fermín are now competing for the same fifteen metres of pitch, which is a better argument than the one Barça were having about that position a year ago. Gordon and Adeyemi can divide the left wing, and Jesus is here so Raphinha need not keep leading the line on evenings the team needs him wide. A bench exists to be spent, and a squad that only rotates once the match is won is not really rotating. Feyenoord on Wednesday and Levante at the weekend are where that gets tested, because depth only counts when a coach uses it while the result is still in doubt.

Barça open the Women's Champions League league phase at home to Paris FC on 23 September, with Roma and HB Køge to follow. Arsenal do not visit until November, and the phase finishes away to Bayern Munich in December. The draw is difficult in almost every respect except the order it arrives in.

Arsenal and Bayern will ask whether it can keep control against sides good enough to take the ball off it.

That order matters more than usual this year, because Pere Romeu, the head coach, is rebuilding a first eleven and deciding how much of it to hand to teenagers at the same time. A European campaign that opened against Arsenal would have forced both decisions in the same week. Instead he has most of the autumn to find out whether Elena Vizuete and Mayssa Baha can be trusted with minutes that are not a formality. He also has time to see whether Patri Guijarro and Kika Nazareth are at the level the club needs rather than merely available. It also buys Kerolin Nicoli time she would not otherwise have had, having arrived from Manchester City into an attack that is scoring freely without anyone asking her to carry it.

Tenerife and Sevilla have established that this squad can overwhelm domestic opposition while rotating heavily. Arsenal and Bayern will ask whether it can keep control against sides good enough to take the ball off it.

FC Barcelona say income passed a billion euros for the first time in 2025/26, and that the club posted a positive ordinary result for a third consecutive year. That was achieved while playing part of the season away from Camp Nou and returning to it at reduced capacity. That is a good set of accounts for Joan Laporta, the club president, but it is not on its own. Xavi Hernández Navarro has reported for ARA that the 1.45 billion euros raised through Goldman Sachs in 2023 has not covered the stadium, that the shortfall now exceeds 350 million before the Palau Blaugrana is costed at all, and that the board will ask the socis to approve more borrowing. Morningstar DBRS has confirmed the club's BBB rating while moving the outlook from positive to stable.

A record year and a stadium the club cannot yet afford to finish are both true at once, and only one of them was in the press release.

The building work is what keeps the treasury tight. He also reports that the roof installation begins next summer and runs for a minimum of four months. That takes Camp Nou out of use and sends the men's first team back to Montjuïc, the only ground in the city big enough. Barça are meanwhile arranging two bond issues worth 210 million against future television rights, which ARA report is in anticipation of financial fair play trouble in coming windows.

A record year and a stadium the club cannot yet afford to finish are both true at once, and only one of them was in the press release.