It could hardly have been more emphatic. Barcelona started the season by beating Sevilla 5-0 over two legs in the Spanish Supecopa and kicked off La Liga with a fantastic 6-2 win at home to Betis on Saturday. Early days, but the Blaugrana, led by an inspired Lionel Messi and a brilliant Luis Suarez, are showing that they will be the team to beat once again.
Barca were without a host of first-team players for this one. Andres Iniesta, Javier Mascherano and Jeremy Mathieu missed out through injury along with Marc-Andre ter Stegen, while Andre Gomes was suspended and both Neymar and Rafinha remain in Rio where they will compete for the gold medal in the Olympic men's football final on Saturday night.
But it mattered little. Samuel Umtit is already looking like an assured presence at centre-back, Denis Suarez has impressed since returning to the Catalan club in the summer, Sergi Roberto is getting better and better at right-back and Arda Turan has been a revelation at the start of his second season.
The Turkey midfielder opened the scoring after just six minutes when he converted a Jordi Alba cross. It was his third goal of the campaign already, having hit only two in 25 appearances last term. It is quite the transformation for the former Atletico Madrid man.
There is one undoubted star in this team, however, and that is Messi. The Argentina scored a header in the Supercopa here at Camp Nou on Wednesday, but was involved in all of Barca's best moments and that was the case again on Saturday.
He picked up the ball from Sergi Roberto on the right after 37 minutes, cut across the area and stopped to curl in a delightful drive to make it 2-1 after Ruben Castro had equalised from a free-kick. It was another for his scrapbook of stunning strikes - and he had not finished either.
Luis Suarez scored shorlty afterwards with a clinical finish as Sergi Roberto turned provider again. And in the second half, Messi saw two long-range efforts saved before a remarkable run and low shot from distance made it 5-1. He was very much in the mood, as was Suarez - who hit the sixth with a wonderful freekick later on - and it sent out an early message that Barca will be the team to beat once more in 2016-17.
In three games against the two Seville sides, Barca have hit 11 goals and conceded only two (one from a free-kick which Claudio Bravo arguably should have saved). Luis Enrique's men are still not quite at top gear and have players missing as well - but already they are blowing their rivals away in 2016-17.
That is ominous news for Real Madrid and Atletico as the two capital clubs start their respective campaigns in La Liga on Sunday. Both of those two teams should be stronger this time, but Barca aim to make it three in a row under Luis Enrique, having also claimed six Primera Division titles out of the last eight.
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