{"id":622042,"date":"2026-09-20T16:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T16:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622042\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T16:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T16:28:09","slug":"better-than-messi-raphinha-smashes-barcelona-record-and-sets-his-sights-on-cristiano-ronaldo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622042\/","title":{"rendered":"Better than Messi? Raphinha smashes Barcelona record and sets his sights on Cristiano Ronaldo"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the “perfect hat-trick” achieved against Sevilla (1-3)<\/a>, Brazilian Raphael Dias “Raphinha” now has fourteen goals in the first eight matches of the current season, the best goalscoring start by a player in Barcelona’s history.<\/p>\n

The forward from Porto Alegre, who has gone from playing as a winger to occupying the “number 9” position this season, surpassed the record of the Blaugrana legend C\u00e9sar Rodr\u00edguez, who until now held the record for goals (13) after the first eight matches.<\/p>\n

Lamine Yamal\u00a0 leaves Barcelona teammates in the dust<\/p>\n

In addition, the first captain of the blaugrana team, who has reached an agreement to renew with Bar\u00e7a until the year 2030, has signed off on the third-best goalscoring start in LaLiga history.<\/p>\n

Raphinha now has twelve goals in the first seven matchdays, a figure surpassed only by Esteban Echevarr\u00eda, who scored 14 for Oviedo in the 1943-44 season, and Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>, who netted 13 goals at the start of the 2014-15 campaign with Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

‘The records of Bar\u00e7a’s unexpected “9” do not end here, as at S\u00e1nchez Pizju\u00e1n he strung together his second hat-trick in the league championship, after the one achieved against Racing de Santander (7-2), something that had not happened in Spanish competition since the 2017-18 season.’<\/p>\n

At Bar\u00e7a, only two players had achieved this milestone: the Argentine Leo Messi<\/a> (on three occasions) and the Uruguayan Luis Su\u00e1rez.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Uruguayan striker was the last blaugrana player, until Raphinha’s emergence at the S\u00e1nchez Pizju\u00e1n, to have achieved a “perfect hat-trick”, by scoring in the same match with his head, right foot and left foot.<\/p>\n

A friendly in Basel, first test as a “9”<\/p>\n

The Brazilian achieved it in another brilliant performance as a center forward, a new position for him since last August 16, when his coach, Hansi Flick, suggested he occupy the tip of the attack in the first half of the friendly match against Swiss side Basel.<\/p>\n

‘”I don\u2019t remember having trained as a “9” in training sessions. In the match, the coach told me that I would play as a “9” and that afterwards I would move to the wing,” the Brazilian explained this week in an interview given to Rac1.’<\/p>\n

Before the start of LaLiga, the German coach once again raised with Raphinha the possibility of playing up front. At that time, Bar\u00e7a was still dreaming of signing Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid\u2019s Argentine striker Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez, a deal it could not complete because of the colchonero club\u2019s refusal to transfer the player.<\/p>\n

Without Juli\u00e1n in the squad, Raphinha played in the center-forward position and led his team’s rout in their league debut against Elche (5-0), with a brace and an assist.<\/p>\n

An average of 1.75 goals per match<\/p>\n

And from that August 23 onward, he would not stop scoring goals for Bar\u00e7a in that position. Raphinha has found the net in seven of the first eight matches he has played. He only failed to score against Levante, although at the Ciutat de Val\u00e8ncia he provided two assists.<\/p>\n

His scoring average is close to two goals per match (1.75) and, at this start of the season, he surpasses the scoring figures of other established forwards in European football such as Harry Kane, Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 and Erling Haaland.<\/p>\n

‘The Brazilian’s emergence as one of the best “9s” in the game today is explained, in part, by the perfect football machine that the team managed by Hansi Flick has become.’<\/p>\n

The LaLiga leaders have scored 36 goals in eight matches (31 in LaLiga and 5 in the Champions League). Raphinha has scored almost 40% of his team’s goals. Without being a natural “9”, his goals are making people forget Robert Lewandowski, who scored 19 goals in 46 matches last season, and Ferran Torres, who finished his last season at Bar\u00e7a with 21 goals in 49 appearances.<\/p>\n

Despite these goal-scoring figures, the Porto Alegre player is not among the 30 candidates to win the next Ballon d’Or, a decision that the footballer himself has described as unfair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the “perfect hat-trick” achieved against Sevilla (1-3), Brazilian Raphael Dias “Raphinha” now has fourteen goals in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-622042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}