Barcelona cruised past Rayo Vallecano by winning 4-0 and maintained their 100% win record in the current La Liga season. Pedro Rodriguez was instrumental in the match resulting in favour of Barcelona. He scored a hat-trick.
He scored the opening goal with an angled shot before Valdes saved a penalty kick from Roberto Trashorras. The prolific striker netted in his second goal two minutes into the second half. Cesc Fabregas provided the assist. He scored his third from short range and Fabregas scored the fourth.
Stats show that Barcelona has won the league every time they have opened the season with five successive wins. This has happened on five occasions before.
This win puts Barcelona to the top of the standings in La Liga. Athletico Madrid are in second with 12 points, and closely followed by Villarreal and Real Madrid on 10 points. However, Villarreal and Real Madrid have a game in hand.
Messi and Neymar had opportunities to score in the first half-hour of play. Playing his 250th La Liga game, Messi was overshadowed by Pedro’s skill and speed in this particular game.
Vallecano could have been ahead a few minutes later when they were awarded a penalty. The Rayo captain took the spot kick, but was brilliantly saved by Valdez.
An interesting stat arose out of the game between the two teams. Barcelona had only 46% possession in the game. Despite having lost the match, Rayo Valecanno brought an end to the possession dominance by Barcelona. The last time they had less that 50% possession was in against Getafe in a La Liga game in 2010.