Ansu Fati came to the rescue again on Sunday by scoring a sensational goal and earning a penalty in a 3-1 victory over Valencia as Barcelona got a big week off to a winning start.
Memphis Depay slammed in the spot-kick and Philippe Coutinho, who came on for Fati on the hour, added a late third to give a comfortable complexion to a game that Valencia had led after just five minutes.
Ansu went off with Valencia still chasing an equaliser, an indication of how important Ronald Koeman considers his involvement in Wednesday’s Champions League game against Dynamo Kiev, with the season’s first Clasico against Real Madrid coming four days later.
Napoli returned to the top of Serie A on Sunday after Nigerian international Victor Osimhen scored the only goal in a hard-fought 1-0 win against Torino.
Lorenzo Insigne’s weak first-half penalty was saved and Mexico international Hirving Lozano hit the post before Osimhen made the most of an attempted clearance that ricocheted off team-mate Eljif Elmas.
Napoli has 24 points, two more than AC Milan, after equalling the best start in club history, having also won the first eight games in 2017-18.
Juventus continued its climb following a disastrous start as Moise Kean’s first-half goal clinched a 1-0 win over Jose Mourinho’s Roma.
Wojciech Szczesny saved a penalty from Roma midfielder Jordan Veretout just before half-time as Juventus made it four wins on the bounce, moving up to seventh.
Roma remains fourth but has lost three of its past five outings.
The results: La Liga: Villarreal 1 (Gerard 55) lost to Osasuna 2 (Torro 26, Avila 87); Barcelona 3 (Fati 13, Depay 41-pen, Coutinho 85) bt Valencia 1 (Gaya 5).
Serie A: Napoli 1 (Osimhen 81) bt Torino 0; Juventus 1 (Kean 16) bt Roma 0 .
