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Ousmane Dembele, Antoine Griezmann and Philippe Coutinho hit the mark for Barcelona on Saturday when Lionel Messi returned to action for the first time since almost leaving the Catalan club this summer.
Dembélé, who made just nine appearances in an injury-stricken 2019-20 campaign, opened the scoring for Barça after just five minutes against Segunda B’s Nastic Tarragona at the Johan Cruyff Stadium.
And Messi, back in the Barça shirt for the first time since the summer saga that saw him close to abandoning the Blaugrana, allowed Griezmann to shoot the penalty that made it 2-0 in the 17th minute.
Javi Bonilla shot one back with a good goal after half an hour, but Coutinho, back at Barcelona after a season loan and a triple win at Bayern Munich, made it 3-1 with another penalty shot to the six minutes of the second half.
Barça’s new coach, Ronald Koeman, lined up a 4-2-3-1 formation for his first match in charge and, as he had said on Friday, gave his players 45 minutes each in the all-Catalans’ duel.
Messi played the first 45 minutes, in which 17-year-old Pedri made his debut for the Blaugrana. In the second half, Portuguese winger Francisco Trincao also stepped in and impressed in his first appearance with the club.
Midfielder Carles Alena started after returning from his loan to Real Betis, while young American winger Konrad de la Fuente and 20-year-old Riqui Puig played the second half.
Luis Suárez and Arturo Vidal were left out of the squad and could leave Barça in the next few days. Ansu Fati was lost through injury and Miralem Pjanic, who arrived from Juventus in June, has just returned to training after testing positive for Covid-19 last month.
Barcelona kicks off in the third weekend of LaLiga, which started on Saturday, due to their participation in the quarterfinals of the Champions League last month.
