Barcelona managed to briefly scare their fans last night by going down away to Galatasaray, but bounced back to deliver a 4-1 win in convincing fashion.

This is what the race chart looks like for even Barcelona’s bad performances so far this season, with the good ones looking utterly ridiculous. A team that was already arguably the world’s best attacking unit under Hansi Flick appears to have leveled up considerably this season, and their games are all must-watch if you’re a fan of entertaining attacking football generally.

If you haven’t caught Barca yet this season or haven’t been following the numbers closely, here’s a quick rundown of what’s changed and why they’re so dominant.

This radar doesn’t tell you much because the parameters are based on normal 99th percentile seasons, but it’s funny to look at. What’s Barcelona the best at? Everything. And by a lot.

Over their 10 games across La Liga and the Champions League, Barcelona have scored an outrageous 43 goals. In league play, they’re averaging 2.91 xG and 1.86 xG differential per 90. Last season, when they were already the best attacking side in the world and La Liga champions on 94 points, Barca had 1.95 xG and a 0.89 xG diff p90.

They won’t keep this pace up; weird bad games and injuries happen over the course of a 38 game season. But if they keep even 75% of this pace up, they’re probably the best attacking side of all time.

Robert Lewandowski departed in the summer, and fans were a bit annoyed at the lack of a high end replacement. A dramatic pursuit of Julian Alvarez went nowhere, and the Blaugrana had to settle for Gabriel Jesus as a stopgap.

But he hasn’t been the first choice center forward. Instead, it’s been Raphinha, who’d previously put up spectacular numbers as a No. 10 or left winger under Flick. He didn’t play against Galatasaray after picking up a knock on international duty, but he’s been bonkers in his La Liga starts.

The same caveats we put on the overall numbers apply here: Yes, that’s an overperformance and won’t be sustained, but it’s still outrageously good. Getting this many high value shots off dribbles and through balls in 7 games is crazy stuff, and regression to his xG would still make Raphinha one of the most effective strikers in the world.

Since becoming a mainstay in the Barcelona squad, Fermin Lopez has been an extremely useful and versatile rotation player. He’s mostly operated as a No. 10, but has shown some ability to play in a deeper midfield role or out wide if required. This year, he’s playing almost exclusively as a No. 8, and he’s adapting to the role well while still retaining his great box-crashing qualities.

We’ll need a larger sample to figure out if Lopez has actually improved significantly as a passer from deep or if he’s just benefitting from being a competent player in an absolute juggernaut of a side. But it’s not exactly weird for a Barcelona-trained No. 10 to figure out a deeper midfield role and start showing progressive passing vision at age 24.

This guy deserves his own 2,000 word piece about how awesome he is; there are tons of them all over the internet and you should go find one. But to keep it brief in the spirit of this newsletter, Yamal continues to get better as he matures and is a mind-blowing playmaker.

He’s also a pretty big volume shooter from range, which I don’t mind at all. While a lot of these are lower value shots, his threat to cut inside and take a rip from the edge of the penalty area is what opens up a lot of space for both his teammates, and his own ability to get to the endline. He could stand to be a bit more discerning with these, and score 15-20% more of them to justify the volume, but I’d never tell a mega-talented 19-year-old to stop doing this.

But where Yamal is already the best player on earth is his final ball. He is simply an assist machine. 27 key passes and 5 assists from 8 games is ridiculous on its own, but look at how high value these shot assists are. 0.15 xG per key pass is out of this world.

And from his two Champions League games so far, he’s even better on a rate basis.

Please watch this assist from last night’s game, in which he does A FAKE RABONA. What the hell is this kid on?

Best teenager I’ve ever watched. Absolute freak of nature. I can’t believe we get to watch this player on this team.

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