Some nights the tone is set before the crowd has finished settling. Barcelona needed just three minutes on Wednesday to announce their intentions in the Champions League, and by the time Feyenoord Rotterdam had drawn breath they were already chasing a game that would never come back to them. The final margin, 5-1, flattered the visitors as much as it rewarded the hosts.

This was Barcelona at their most ruthless and their most fluent, a performance built on early aggression and sustained through the second half without ever losing its edge. Raphinha struck twice, Lamine Yamal conducted from the flanks and chipped in with a goal of his own, and the substitutes arrived to add gloss rather than repair. The Spotify Camp Nou has seen more dramatic occasions, but few as one-sided.

Feyenoord, for their part, will file this away as an education. They came to Catalonia with hope and left with a solitary consolation and a great deal to think about, their opening night in the competition turned into an ordeal by the third minute and only worsening from there.

Ruthless from the start

The opener carried the fingerprints of Barcelona's brightest young talent. Lamine Yamal, drifting into space and demanding the ball, released Raphinha inside the box, and the Brazilian's left-footed finish nestled into the bottom-left corner. Three minutes gone, and the template for the evening was already drawn in bold.

If the first goal was about speed, the second was about audacity. On 22 minutes João Cancelo found Karim Adeyemi in the pocket outside the area, and the response was emphatic — a right-footed strike that arced into the top-right corner, the kind of finish that leaves a goalkeeper rooted and a stadium roaring. Two goals, two assists from the supporting cast, and Feyenoord in disarray before the half hour.

There was no let-up after the interval. Pedri, all poise and precision, threaded a through ball into Raphinha on 57 minutes, and the winger obliged with his second of the night, this time steered to the bottom-right corner. His brace was the reward for a display of relentless movement, and it pushed Barcelona into territory from which any comeback looked fanciful.

Yamal takes centre stage

For all the goals around him, this was Lamine Yamal's night to own. He had already turned provider for the opener, and on 77 minutes he took matters into his own hands, standing over a free kick and curling a left-footed effort into the bottom-right corner. It was the strike of a player utterly at ease with the weight of expectation, delivered with the calm of a veteran and the flourish of a prodigy.

His evening was not finished. With five minutes remaining he swung a cross into the centre of the box for Gabriel Jesus to meet with a header, the substitute nodding it into the bottom-left corner to make it five. Yamal's fingerprints were on three of Barcelona's goals — two assists and one of his own — a contribution that underlined why the game increasingly seems to orbit around him.

Around that brilliance, Barcelona kept their shape and their hunger, refusing to coast even with the tie long since settled. That the manager could introduce Gabriel Jesus and watch him score within minutes spoke of the depth at his disposal and the standards being demanded from the first whistle to the last.

A lone consolation

Feyenoord did at least leave with something to show for their trip. On 82 minutes Gonçalo Borges whipped a cross to the near post and Sem Steijn arrived to convert from the left side of the six-yard box, his right-footed finish beating the goalkeeper at the bottom-left corner. It was a moment of quality amid the wreckage, a reminder that the Dutch side are not without threat.

Any flicker of belief was extinguished almost immediately, Jesus restoring the four-goal cushion three minutes later. For Feyenoord the numbers make sober reading: five conceded, one scored, no points, and a place of 36th in the early standings. A debut evening in the competition could scarcely have gone worse.

Yet there is no shame in being outclassed by a side of this calibre on their own turf, and the manner of Steijn's strike will offer a sliver of encouragement. The margins in the group stage are unforgiving, but Feyenoord's campaign is only one match old, and there is time yet to recover ground.

Top of the pile

Barcelona sit first, three points banked, a goal difference of plus-four and a statement of intent lodged for the rest of Europe to note. Opening nights can be nervy affairs, weighed down by expectation and unfamiliarity, but there was none of that here. This was a team that treated the first fixture as an opportunity to seize control, and seize it they did.

The names that lit up the scoresheet will draw the headlines — Raphinha's brace, Yamal's growing command, the assured finishing of Adeyemi and Jesus — but the wider message is about a squad hitting its stride at exactly the right moment. Depth, ruthlessness and a willingness to keep pressing when the result was safe: these are the qualities that carry sides deep into the competition.

Feyenoord, meanwhile, must regroup quickly, licking their wounds and turning their attention to salvaging a campaign that has begun in the harshest possible fashion. For Barcelona the road ahead only grows more demanding, but on this evidence they will fear no one. The Camp Nou has seen its team make an early claim, and it was made with real conviction.