Champions League: Barcelona’s attack keeps clicking and Catalan club earns another win

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona showed its attacking prowess yet again in another big Champions League win.

The Catalan club routed Red Star Belgrade 5-2 Wednesday, marking the seventh straight match in all competitions that it as scored at least three goals. Hansi Flick’s team has averaged four goals per match in that run of victories.

Robert Lewandowski netted twice to extend his scoring streak to 15 goals in his last 10 matches with the Catalan club, while an in-form Raphinha also scored for Barcelona, taking his recent Champions League tally to eight goals in his last six appearances.

“We played very well again today,” said Lewandowski, who took his tally in the competition to 99 goals. “We had the match under control and got the three points.”

Barcelona leads the Champions League in goals scored with 15 in four matches.

“We knew that Barcelona were in good form before the match, winning the ‘clasico’ and scoring a lot of goals,” Red Star midfielder Timi Elsnik said. “It was quite a challenge but we put in a good showing, especially in the first half.”

Barcelona was coming off a 3-1 Spanish league win against Espanyol in the city derby last weekend, and before that it had routed rival Real Madrid 4-0 in the Spanish league “clasico” and beaten Bayern Munich 4-1 in the Champions League.

Its previous victories included a 5-1 win against Sevilla, a 3-0 victory at Alaves and a 5-0 rout of Young Boys in the Champions League.

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