LAMINE YAMAL HAD A HAND IN FOUR GOALS IN BARCELONA'S CHAMPIONS LEAGUE OPENER

Barcelona opened its Champions League campaign the way it has opened most things this season, with Lamine Yamal doing more than his share. Barcelona beat Feyenoord 5-1 at Camp Nou, and the 19 year old finished with two goals and two assists, a hand in four of the five goals scored.

How It Went

Raphinha started the scoring in the 3rd minute. Karim Adeyemi made it two in the 22nd. Raphinha added his second in the 57th. Yamal got his own name on the scoresheet in the 77th, and Gabriel Jesus closed it out in the 85th. Feyenoord's only reply came from Steijn in the 82nd minute, a consolation goal that arrived after the result was already decided.

Feyenoord came in unbeaten through five Eredivisie matches, managed by Giovanni van Bronckhorst, who spent four years as a Barcelona player before he ever coached against the club. None of that history mattered once Yamal started getting involved. Barcelona controlled the ball for most of the night and turned that control into chance after chance, the kind of night matchday one of a Champions League campaign is supposed to look like when the home side is this far ahead of the visitors on paper.

Raphinha's own night gets lost a little in a box score built around a teenager, but a two goal game from a player who finished among last season's Champions League scoring leaders is its own statement about the attack Barcelona has built. Between Raphinha pulling defenders one direction and Yamal pulling them another, Feyenoord spent long stretches choosing which problem to leave open, and picked wrong most of the night.

Yamal's Night

Two goals and two assists is a full season's production for most wingers packed into one match. For Yamal it is the second time in as many weeks he has looked like the best player on the field for long stretches, and the difference between tonight and nine days ago is the whole story of how quickly things move for him.

We wrote on August 31 about Yamal ending a 155 minute goal drought against Rayo Vallecano, a stretch that only counted as a drought because of the bar he had already set for himself. Tonight he needed a fraction of that time to be involved in Barcelona's first goal, and by full time he had outproduced that entire scoreless run several times over.

What stands out from tonight is not just the finishing. Two goals from a player still occasionally described as a passer first would be a strong night on its own. Add two more assists on top of it, on a night Barcelona scored five different ways against a side that arrived organized and unbeaten, and the box score reads like a player refusing to let the rest of the front line finish the job without him.

Still Building the Record File

Yamal is already the youngest player in Champions League history to score and assist in the same match, a mark he set last season against Benfica at 17 years old. He will not turn 20 until next summer, and nights like this one keep adding entries to a list of youngest ever Champions League records that is starting to read less like a prospect's ceiling and more like a description of where the competition already stands.

Barcelona have added Rodri to that midfield this offseason and still built their opener around a front line, which tells you something about where the club thinks its identity actually lives right now. The Champions League moved to a 36 team single table format two seasons ago, eight league phase matches before anyone plays a knockout round, and one routine night against a mid table Eredivisie side will mean very little once Barcelona starts drawing sides built to slow Yamal down instead of chase him.

That is the honest caveat on a night like this one. Feyenoord had no answer, and plenty of the clubs left on Barcelona's league phase schedule will have spent the international break studying exactly how to find one. Barcelona have one match played and a full league phase left to defend a result like this one. On tonight's evidence, the phase they need to worry about is not September.