Three talking points as Barcelona dismantle Red Star Belgrade in UEFA Champions League | OneFootball

FC Barcelona continued their impressive form under Hansi Flick with yet another impressive display of attacking football against a hapless Red Star Belgrade team, eventually finishing 5-2 winners on the night in Serbia.

A brace from Robert Lewandowski and goals from Raphinha, Inigo Martinez, and Fermin Lopez were enough to see the Catalan club get past their opponents. It is also worth mentioning here that Jules Kounde provided assists for three of those five goals.

Hansi Flick’s side have been scoring goals for fun in recent weeks and have one more game to go before the international break. It is a difficult away trip to the Reale Arena where they will have to take Real Sociedad on. It will be a difficult encounter, despite the Basque club’s indifferent form.

With all this in mind, we at Barca News Network bring three talking points for Barcelona as they dismantled Serbian side Red Star Belgrade 5-2 in the Champions League.

1: Into the top-8!

In this remodeled format of the Champions League, it is very important for teams to finish in the top 8 of the League Phase standings. Having suffered a loss in their opening encounter against AS Monaco, Barcelona had not managed to break into such a position until last night.

However, last night’s win over Red Star Belgrade means Barcelona now find themselves 6th in the table. They have the highest goal difference of all the teams in the competition, have scored the most goals (15), and now have nine points from four games.

With four games still to go until the conclusion of the League Phase, it is very important for Barcelona to continue to their good form to ensure they avoid having to go through the dreaded play-offs. For the form that they are in, ideally, Hansi Flick’s men should aim to be top of the table.

The Catalan club faces Brest, Borussia Dortmund, Benfica, and Atalanta next in the League Phase. They are not easy fixtures by any stretch of imagination and it will be important for Barcelona to retain their form as things keep moving forward.

2: Low blocks don’t work against Flick’s Barcelona

Red Star Belgrade learned something that a lot of La Liga teams are learning about Barcelona this season. It is impossible to stop this attacking juggernaut with a low block like it used to happen until last season when the team looked clueless.

Hansi Flick’s Barcelona are way too dynamic to stop them by using one plan. Belgrade set up in a compact 4-2-3-1 Christmas formation. They tried to sit deep, stop the passing lanes in midfield, and force the Catalan club to play wide.

However, with quick rotations and incisive passing, Barcelona made their tactic ineffective. Not for one point did Flick’s men look clueless on how to break Red Star Belgrade down and it is a testament to their excellent attacking routines.

Thus, it is time for teams to start understanding something. Low blocks don’t work against Flick’s Barcelona, just like breaking the offside trap is so much more difficult than they think it is. They have to find some other way to stop this team.

3: Raphinha is unstoppable

Raphinha could have easily walked away from the game against Belgrade with another hat trick against his name. He squandered an easy chance, hit the post on one occasion, and scored a sublime goal where he passed the ball into the bottom corner.

He also had an incredible assist to Inigo Martinez and in all fairness, should have had another with a chance that he created for Robert Lewandowski that one would expect him to put to bed 11 times out of 10.

The ex-Leeds United man has already equaled his goal tally from last season and we are not even one-third into it. At this point, the 27-year-old looks unstoppable and is easily one of the best attackers in the world on current form.

He has emerged as a chance creation monster and it does not look like he will stop anytime soon. One can only hope that he retains his form for a long time and let’s wait and see how it plays out.