Even though barca weren’t at their best they still cruised to a calm 2-0 win. The quality of the midfield was so overwhelming that the disappointing attack didn’t even matter. It’s really ridiculous that this is still before rodri gets settled in and we can see the full potential of this midfield. Bilbao really struggled with the barcelona press and couldn’t get out of their own half outside of long kicks from simon. Very disappointing performances from the bilbao forwards too as even when the ball reached them they got shut down immediately, the only exception being sancet who managed to get shots off and create a chance. Bilbao fans don’t have much to be happy about after this game but their new addition to the first team Johaneko looked really good defending against yamal holding his own, and when he got taken off only then yamal started to ramp up. Barcas attack was very disappointing in the first half with neither yamal or gordon adding anything of value, Raphinha was the only one to actually create any danger in that front 3. In the 2nd half yamal woke up and kept getting better until the final whistle before which he should’ve registered at least one assist from the 2 chances he created for adeyemi, gordon on the other continued to play like shit. Midfield is where barca dominated as usual with great performances from bernal and even better from pedri who on top of sweeping like prime kante also had that brilliant assist to raphinha and a couple more chances created on top. Rodri debut happened but he didn’t have much to so just circulated the ball until the final whistle. The surprise of the game for me was xavi espart who I knew before but was still really shocked at how good he is in all phases of play, defending, passing, carrying, dangerous shot, and he seemed comfortable with both feet as well looks like another la masia talent set to stay in the 1st team for a while. Notable players: Pedri, Bernal, xavi espart, Johaneko, yamal 2nd half