Wednesday’s 5-1 thrashing of Viktoria Plzen by Xavi Hernandez’s team at the Camp Nou featured a hat-trick from Robert Lewandowski in his first Champions League game for Barcelona.
Franck Kessie and Ferran Torres both scored for Barca, who failed to advance past the group round last season.
Lewandowski has already tallied eight goals in only five games across all competitions for his new squad.
“I knew from the beginning here it was going to be important to adapt right from the first game,” he told uefa.com.
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“Today is my wife’s birthday so the goals and the birthday were for her. The fact that she was in the stadium on her birthday means a lot. Something amazing for me.”
The five-time European champions will face harder challenges in the future because Group C also includes Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.
Following Bayern’s opening 2-0 victory at the San Siro, the Catalan giants travel to the Allianz Arena the following Tuesday in a true test of their progress over the past 12 months.
In the 67th minute, Lewandowski scored a beautiful low shot from a distance to complete his sixth hat trick in the Champions League.
In the 13th minute, Kessie scored after Jules Kounde had headed Ousmane Dembele’s corner back across the goal for Barca.
The Ivorian midfielder scored his first goal for the team since joining in the offseason after leaving AC Milan.
About halfway through the first half, Ansu Fati came close to increasing the lead, but Jindrich Stanek, the goalie for the opposition, stopped him.
In the 25th minute, Andreas Christensen took down Jhon Mosquera, earning Plzen a penalty. However, the referee later changed his decision following a VAR review and awarded Barca a free kick.
With his 87th goal overall and first for his new club, Lewandowski passed Karim Benzema to take third place on the all-time Champions League goalscoring lists.
In the 34th minute, the 34-year-old took a low shot from just inside the box and curled it into the bottom corner.
When Jan Sykora headed in Vaclav Jemelka’s cross just before halftime, the Czechs gave themselves a chance to recover.
However, Plzen was unable to close the gap before halftime when Lewandowski stooped down unnoticed and headed Dembele’s cross in.
In the 67th minute, Lewandowski scored a beautiful low shot from a distance to complete his sixth hat trick in the Champions League.
“I don’t know if Robert is the best striker in Europe but for us he’s the best,” said Xavi.
“He helps us play out, he presses, he brings us loads of solutions in attack. Total maturity as a player, and completely spectacular. He scored a hat-trick but how he worked for the team.”
After Dembele’s chipped pass, Xavi’s team quickly made it five when Torres, a substitute, hammered a beautiful volley on the turn into the top corner.
Plzen escaped more harm, but they still have a difficult challenge ahead of them in the remaining five group games, starting with their next home encounter against Inter.
