Barcelona captain Raphinha scored a hat-trick to direct his side towards a comfortable 4-1 home victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday.
The win for Barca at their temporary Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys home snapped a near-decade-long winless run against the German bigwigs.
Raphinha’s inspired night began when Barcelona scored the first goal just a little over a minute over the opening of the game, having received an exquisite pass through from midfielder Fermin Lopez, beating the offside trap and rounding the oncoming Manuel Neuer before rolling the ball into the empty net.
Harry Kane leveled in the 18th minute with a volley, only for Robert Lewandowski to restored Barcelona’s lead in the 36th minute against his old side after a mistake by Bayern’s defense had allowed him to score.
Raphinha, however, put through two quick-fire goals in quick counter-attacks either side of half-time.
Barca sits ninth in the standings of the UEFA Champions League with six points from three games while Bayern sits 23rd with three points following a second consecutive defeat.
Recapping the game: Raphinha’s brilliance downed Bayern.
This was billed to be a dogfight between two giants of the European game but Raphinha had other ideas when he struck the game’s first goal, his first of a hat-trick, after just 54 seconds!
This was the second-fastest goal ever in the tournament for Barca after only van Bommel scored a goal against Panathinaikos in 2005 after just 36 seconds.
He is the first player to score a brace in the first 45 minutes of a game against Bayern in the history of the Champions League since Neymar did so for Barcelona back in May 2015-damaging the already beleaguered German side’s reputation with another sheet of paper in the second period.
