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La Liga Champions FC Barcelona bounced back from their opening day defeat as they smashed Real Betis 5-2 at home on Sunday night in the absence of stalwarts Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.
The Andalusians took a shock lead early on through new signing Nabil Fekir before Antoine Griezmann responded with two goals – one coming close to the half-time whistle and one soon after play resumed in the second half – to give the Blaugrana the lead.
Carles Perez, Jordi Alba and Arturo Vidal also chipped in with a goal each to extend Barca's lead and seal the three points while Loren Moron's strike in the 79th minute proved to be nothing more than a consolation goal for Betis.
On the other hand, it was another historic occassion for the Catalans as Gerard Pique played his 500th game for the club and manager Ernesto Valverde also handed 16-year-old Ansu Fati his first team debut. The win lifts Barcelona to ninth place in the league table with two of their next three games being against newly promoted sides Osasuna and Granada.
Meanwhile, Real Betis are off to a torrid start under new boss Rubi as they sit rock bottom, however, their next two fixtures happen to be at home against Madrid based teams Getafe and Leganes.
Messi and Suarez are likely to be back in contention next week for their away trip to Pamplona while Ousmane Dembele was ruled out for up to one month with a hamstring injury last Thursday.
The transfer window is still open and Barca will surely be interested in getting some business done as they have been heavily linked with Neymar in recent weeks and could use some of their fringe players as a makeweight in the deal.
On that note, here's how the Twitterati reacted to the game:
