Barcelona easily beats Ferencváros

BARCELONA, Spain – Barcelona began erasing some of the bad memories from last season’s embarrassing Champions League elimination with a comfortable opening group win against Hungarian club Ferencváros on Tuesday.

Lionel Messi opened the scoring and two teenage teammates also chipped in to lead Barcelona to a 5-1 victory in its first Champions League match since the 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals last season.

After Messi, Ansu Fati, Philippe Coutinho, Pedri and Ousmane Dembélé scored to give Barcelona the opening win in Group G. Ihor Kharatin scored Ferencváros’ lone goal from a penalty that led to a straight red card to Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué with about 20 minutes left.

Barcelona, trying to win its first Champions League title since 2015, was trounced by Bayern in August during last season’s quarterfinals. The loss capped the Catalan club’s first season without a title since 2007-08. It has been mired in crisis since then, with Messi being forced to stay despite wanting to leave, and with former player Ronald Koeman taking over the coaching job with the task of revamping the squad.

Messi opened the scoring by converting a 27th-minute penalty kick after being brought down by a defender inside the area. It was his second goal of the season in all competitions, and 116th in total in the Champions League. It extended his run with at least a goal in the European competition to 16 consecutive seasons. Ryan Giggs is the only other player with goals in 16 editions of the Champions League.

The 17-year-old Fati added to the lead with a nice touch from close range in the 42nd after a well-placed pass by Frenkie de Jong, then set up Coutinho’s goal with a neat back-flick pass in the 52nd. Substitute Pedri, also 17 years old, scored from close range in the 82nd in his Champions League debut, and Dembélé came off the bench to seal the scoring in the 89th for his first goal with Barcelona in more than a year.

Barcelona got the win despite playing a man down from the 68th as Piqué was sent off for bringing down Tokmac Nguen inside the area to stop a counterattack. Piqué will miss Barcelona’s visit to Juventus next week.

Barcelona hosts Real Madrid on Saturday in the first Spanish league “clásico” of the season.

ASSOCIATED PRESS BARCELONA’S ANSU FATI SCORES his side’s second goal during the Champions League group G match between FC Barcelona and Ferencvaros at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday.