La Liga round-up: Messi starts league season with perfect WhoScored rating
Reigning champions Barcelona kicked off the new La Liga campaign with a routine 3-0 victory over Alaves, while Julen Lopetegui relieved some early pressure at Real Madrid with a win against Getafe. Atletico Madrid were held to a 1-1 draw with rivals Valencia on Monday night, but Levante and newly-promoted SD Huesca pulled off surprise results against Real Betis and Eibar, respectively. There were highs and lows across the weekend’s action, as we run through the best and worst performers.
La Liga have now lost superstars in successive summers after Cristiano Ronaldo followed in Neymar’s footsteps and left for pastures new. Lionel Messi remains at Barcelona and there will be even more pressure on his shoulders to fly the flag for Spanish football this season. As way as starts go, Messi couldn’t have done a lot more. In fact, he couldn’t.
In Barcelona’s first league game of the season, Messi garnered the first perfect WhoScored 10 rating in Europe’s top five leagues. The 31-year-old opened his account with two goals, including a wonderfully clever free-kick directed straight under the Alaves wall. Messi’s free-kick was his seventh scored since the start of last season, more than any player in Europe’s top five leagues.
The Argentina international was also denied by the woodwork on two occasions during a typically mesmerising performance, while also completing six dribbles and registering five key passes.
While Messi could not beaten in terms of WhoScored rating, Andre Silva did outperform the Argentina international with a hat-trick on his Sevilla bow. Signed on loan from AC Milan this summer, Silva managed more league goals on debut for Pablo Machin’s side than he did in 922 minutes for the Serie A giants last term.
Silva hit the target with five of his six attempts on goal against Rayo Vallecano, as Sevilla started the new league season with an impressive 4-1 win away to the newly-promoted side. A WhoScored rating of 9.43 was the second best in Spain over the weekend.
Rounding off the top three is Levante ace Jose Luis Morales (9.08), who scored twice in a surprise 3-0 win away to Real Betis on Friday. The 31-year-old will be key again for Levante this term and almost ran the length of the pitch for one of his goals.
While the aforementioned trio turned in brilliant performances in gameweek 1, the same cannot be said for David Soria’s display. The Getafe goalkeeper committed an error that led to Madrid’s opening goal and only made one save against the European champions. The 25-year-old was the lowest WhoScored rated player in La Liga this weekend (5.14).
