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Winners and Losers: Barcelona and City cruise to wins while Vini Jr. sees red

Barcelona won their first eight matches of the season
Barcelona won their first eight matches of the seasonURBANANDSPORT / NURPHOTO / NURPHOTO VIA AFP

After a lengthy international break, club football returned to the spotlight last weekend, giving fans more moments of ecstasy and agony from their favourite teams. Here are some of the moments that caught our attention and made it into our weekly Winners and Losers feature.

Winner: Barcelona

For just the second time in their history, Barcelona have won their first eight matches of a LaLiga season. The only other time it happened was in 2013/14, with Gerardo Martin in charge of the Catalans and a certain Lionel Messi in the team.

Barcelona beat Getafe 3-0 at the weekend. As well as maintaining their perfect record, they have now scored 34 goals, with only Sevilla in 1940/41 managing more - 41 - in their first eight games. Hansi Flick's side will travel to Betis in the league next, before the big “El Clasico”.

Barcelona dominate the start of the LaLiga season
Barcelona dominate the start of the LaLiga seasonFlashscore

Loser: Vinicius Jr.

Speaking of 'El Clasico', we now turn to the Catalans' great rivals, Real Madrid. Jose Mourinho's side beat Villarreal 1-0, with Vinicius Jr. at the centre of one of the key moments of the game.

The Brazilian started on the bench and scored a goal that would have made it 2-0, but the effort was ruled out after the referee spotted him pulling Nathan Saliba's hair. The forward was shown a straight red card.

It was the fourth sending-off of Vinicius Jr's career, including two for Real's first team, one for Castilla and one for Flamengo. The bigger concern for Los Blancos, however, is that their star could miss the big derby against Barcelona.

Winner: Manchester City

114 breaches of regulations? No problem! Manchester City have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, but they delivered an emphatic response on the pitch at the weekend. The Citizens beat fierce rivals Liverpool 3-0 away from home to make it six wins from six matches.

Across the last seven seasons, only one team had previously collected 18 points after their opening six games: Manchester City in 2023/24.

Pep Guardiola's influence is still clear among the Citizens. Every player was involved in the build-up to the third goal, scored by Rayan Cherki, with 41 passes completed before the ball found the net.

Loser: Manuel Neuer

Even legends make mistakes; Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer found that out the hard way. Just seconds had passed in the away game against Augsburg when a pass back and an unsuccessful attempt at a chipped pass by the goalkeeper put Robin Fellhauer through to score the fastest goal in Bundesliga history.

Winner: Chelsea / Jordan Henderson

It took Chelsea just 149 seconds to build a comfortable two-goal lead against Bournemouth. Never in their history had the Blues scored twice so quickly in a match, and one of Xabi Alonso's players stood out in particular.

At 36 years and 115 days old, Jordan Henderson became the oldest Chelsea player to be directly involved in three goals - two goals and an assist.

Only Emile Heskey, in April 1998, had scored and provided an assist faster than Henderson did against Bournemouth, doing so against Derby in less than two minutes. Chelsea eventually ran out emphatic 5-1 winners.

Loser: Rayo Vallecano

The match between Rayo Vallecano and Athletic Club was abandoned after an unusual protest by the home supporters. Fans threw paper aeroplanes and rubber balls onto the pitch, protesting against the club's management and president Raúl Martín Presa.

The game was stopped in the 13th minute. After play resumed, the incidents happened again, and the referee decided to abandon the match permanently.

It was Rayo's first home game at the Vallecas stadium this season, after the team had been forced to play at Butarque in Leganes because of the poor condition of the pitch.

The fans were protesting the way the situation had been handled by the club's management, but their discontent will most likely turn into three points lost by their team.

Winner: Brommapojkarna

A 0-0 scoreline at half-time is nothing unusual on a football pitch. A 5-6 final score, however, is! One of the most spectacular matches of the season so far took place in Sweden.

Fans at the game between AIK Stockholm and Brommapojkarna may have been frustrated not to see a goal in the opening 45 minutes of the match in the Swedish capital.

What followed after the break certainly exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic fan in the stands: 11 goals and drama by the bucketload.

The visitors led 5-1 in the 70th minute, only to be pegged back in the eighth minute of stoppage time. The home fans' celebrations suffered a dramatic reversal just a minute later, in the 90+9th minute, when Brommapojkarna scored to make it an unbelievable 5-6.

Loser: Rakow Czestochowa

We close this week's feature in Poland. Raków Częstochowa are enduring a disastrous season. The former champions were beaten 4-1 by GKS Katowice and sit bottom of the Ekstraklasa with just three points after 10 rounds.

The team have already had three managers this season, but the changes have done nothing to turn the situation around. Bartosz Nowak, a former Raków player, added to his old club's humiliation with a goal and two assists.

The sporting crisis has been compounded by a racism scandal. Michael Ameyaw, a former player at the club, revealed that a group of supporters refused to chant the names of Black players before matches and that he himself had been the target of racist abuse.

Ameyaw later clarified that the allegations concerned only a small section of the supporters' group, not the entire fan community or the club's management.

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