Barcelona Opens Season With 36 Goals in 8 Games, One of the Best Starts in European Soccer

Thirty six goals in eight games. Eight conceded. Seven straight wins in LaLiga and a 5-1 thrashing of Feyenoord to open the Champions League campaign. Barcelona headed into the international break in full flight, with Hansi Flick squeezing every drop out of a team that looks like it's in the best form of any side on the continent. The question that almost inevitably comes up: can this be compared to anything else in European soccer history?

The number that jumps out most is the goal difference: +28 in eight games. To grasp the scale of it, the team has scored five or more goals in five of those eight matches. This isn't a case of scattered hot streaks, it's a machine that won't stop scoring.

Much of this has a name attached to it: Raphinha. The Brazilian ended up playing as an improvised center forward after the heavily rumored summer signing of Julian Alvarez never materialized. Far from being hurt by it, he turned into the best possible version of "Plan B." He leads LaLiga's scoring chart with 12 goals in seven games (14 counting all competitions), and last week he scored back to back hat tricks in just four days, against Racing and Sevilla. The one against Sevilla was straight out of a coaching manual: a goal with his left foot, a goal with his right foot and a header.

With those numbers, Raphinha now owns the best scoring start by a player in club history, surpassing the historic mark set by Cesar Rodriguez, who had scored 13 goals in eight games back in the 1948-49 season. And looking at this century, only one name tops him: Cristiano Ronaldo, who opened the 2014-15 season with Real Madrid by scoring 16 goals in eight games.

The fact that Raphinha wasn't nominated for the Ballon d'Or remains hard to explain given what he's doing right now. And he's not the only one shining in the Barcelona locker room: Lamine Yamal, with eight goals and six assists across those same eight games, became the youngest player in LaLiga history to reach, and surpass, 50 career assists.

Where Does This Start Rank in History?

Digging through the records of Europe's top five leagues, this season's Barcelona side ranks among the best starts on record, though it's far from the only eye catching case out there.

In England, the record still belongs to Everton's 1894-95 side, with 30 goals and a +23 goal difference in their first eight First Division matches, including 5-0 and 6-1 routs. In the Premier League era, nobody topped Manchester City's 2016-17 side, which reached +21.

In Italy, Rudi Garcia's Roma in 2013-14 set the bar with 22 goals and a +21 difference, after winning their first ten league matches. In France, Unai Emery's PSG in 2017-18, with Cavani, Neymar and Mbappe, reached 28 goals and a +24 difference. In Germany, Bayern's 2016-17 side finished with 27 goals and a +26 difference, just ahead of Dortmund's 2015-16 side (+24, despite scoring 30 goals). And in Spain there's a ceiling that still hasn't been touched: Real Madrid's 1928-29 side, in a run made up entirely of Copa del Rey matches, finished with 38 goals scored, only seven conceded and a +31 difference. Nearly a century later, not even the current Barcelona side can match that number.

Real Madrid itself, in the Cristiano era of 2014-15, scored 30 goals in their first eight matches but conceded ten, finishing at +20. So Flick's Barcelona, with its +28, ranks among the most dominant starts seen in modern European soccer, even if history still holds a couple of numbers above it.