Barcelona 4-2 Real Sociedad: Three Things We Learned

The new La Liga season is officially underway and there’s a lot to get excited about throughout the Spanish top flight – even if many want to claim that isn’t the case. The top clubs in Spain are hoping to make a real statement both domestically and across the continent between now and the end of the campaign, and moreso than anyone else, Barcelona are included in that conversation.

The contenders went up against Real Sociedad in what proved to be a thrilling game, ending in Barca running out 4-2 winners despite a late scare.

Building on the pressure

Even if some don’t want to admit it, the talks of financial constraints behind the scenes at Barcelona have had an effect on the day-to-day running of the club. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that because it could actually really help them to find a new route forward in this league and the UCL, but they definitely had more eyes on what they were doing from a warped “intrigue” standpoint than ever before in this game. They passed with flying colours, and now they need to try and use that pressure as fuel.

Sociedad show heart

When you’re 3-0 down away from home to Barcelona it can be easy to collapse in on yourself, but that wasn’t the direction Real Sociedad chose to go in. Instead, they scored twice in a matter of minutes to leave Barca on the verge of a major collapse that would’ve raised even more eyebrows about their immediate future. They weren’t able to quite complete their own “Istanbul” type of moment but if their fifth place finish last season is anything to go by, we can expect a lot more of this from Sociedad between now and May which should make for some grandstand finishes.

The Messi-less era

Martin Braithwaite’s brace, Gerard Pique and Memphis Depay looking strong, Sergio Aguero still yet to even come back into the team. There are plenty of reasons to believe Barcelona are going to use the departure of Lionel Messi to their advantage, despite how painful it may be seeing him play for Paris Saint-Germain this season. They’ve got a whole lot of pride in their first team squad and even though it may take a while before we can really believe they’re a consistent force once again, they’re doing all the right things – although there are still plenty of games left to go.