Seven games into life at Barcelona, Anthony Gordon had not scored once. Three days ago that changed. On Tuesday night in Istanbul, in front of a Galatasaray crowd doing its best to make the place unbearable, he got his first Champions League goal for the club and Barcelona won 4-1 after falling behind.
Galatasaray struck first and lost the thread
Barcelona tried to kill the noise with the ball, keeping it for long spells early on, and it worked until Galatasaray attacked properly for the first time. Seconds after Gordon's penalty appeal was waved away, Rafael Leao drove down the left and pulled the ball back for Aleksey Batrakov, whose shot took a deflection off Joao Cancelo and found the bottom corner.
Six minutes later the home side thought they had a second. Baris Alper Yilmaz turned in Victor Osimhen's header past Joan Garcia, the stadium erupted, and the video assistant referee ruled it out for an offside so tight it needed a line drawn on a screen. That was the turning point, though nobody knew it yet. Two minutes before the break Dani Olmo's deflection dropped for Cancelo, who curled a shot past Ugurcan Cakir and quietened the whole ground.
Three goals in the space of a quarter of an hour
Whatever doubts Barcelona carried into the interval were gone within five minutes of the restart. Fermin Lopez headed in Lamine Yamal's cross on 50 minutes. Three minutes later Yamal did it again, this time with a piece of close control that opened a gap where there had not been one, and Gordon finished. Karim Adeyemi, the other summer signing, came on for Gordon and added a fourth from the left side of the box after Gabriel Jesus touched a Yamal cross into his path.
Hansi Flick's teams have made this sort of thing routine. Barcelona have now scored 84 goals in 28 Champions League matches under him, three a game, the best ratio any club has managed under one manager across 20 or more games since the competition took its current form in 1992-93. That is the kind of number you only get by turning difficult away nights into comfortable ones.
What it sets up
Barcelona have six points from two matches, having opened with a 5-1 win over Feyenoord, and the reward is a trip to Paris St-Germain on Tuesday 20 October. Galatasaray, top of the Turkish Super Lig, are still waiting for a point in this competition after losing 3-1 to Sporting CP last month. They go to Lille on Wednesday 21 October needing one.
Match facts: Galatasaray 1-4 Barcelona, Champions League league phase, Istanbul. Batrakov scored for the hosts; Cancelo two minutes before half-time, Fermin Lopez on 50, Gordon on 53 and Adeyemi late on for Barcelona. Baris Alper Yilmaz had a goal disallowed for offside after a VAR check. Lamine Yamal provided three assists.
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