Lamine Yamal double keeps Barcelona perfect as Atletico Madrid strike late

Lamine Yamal scored twice as Barcelona maintained their perfect start to the La Liga season with a 4-2 victory at Levante on Sunday.

The result restored Hansi Flick’s side’s three-point advantage over Real Madrid at the top of the table, after Los Blancos beat Rayo Vallecano on Saturday. Atletico Madrid moved joint-third with a 3-0 win against Real Sociedad, scoring all three goals in the closing stages.

Barcelona took control at the Ciutat de Valencia Stadium early on, with Xavi Espart opening the scoring in the fifth minute. The 19-year-old midfielder, introduced to the first team by Flick this season and playing at left-back, registered his first goal for the club when his shot from the edge of the area took a slight deflection.

Levante, unbeaten in eight matches at home before the game, responded with sustained pressure. Petar Ratkov failed to make proper contact with a good opportunity, while Barcelona goalkeeper Joan Garcia saved from Roger Brugue.

The hosts were punished for those missed chances in the 19th minute. Raphinha rounded goalkeeper Mathew Ryan and squared the ball for Yamal, who finished into an unguarded net.

The Spain winger added his second shortly after half-time, winning a penalty after being brought down by Aissa Mandi before driving the spot-kick past Ryan. It was Yamal’s seventh goal in four games across all competitions.

Barcelona appeared to be heading comfortably towards victory, but Levante capitalised on defensive mistakes. Andreas Christensen cleared Ivan Romero’s bobbling effort off the line, only for Romero to score moments later after an error by Espart.

Brugue then took advantage of a mistake by Marc Bernal to make it 3-2 and set up a tense finish. Substitute Karim Adeyemi finally secured the points for Barcelona in stoppage time, bursting through the defence before calmly beating Ryan with a composed finish.

Barcelona have now won all five of their league matches, although Flick admitted the performance was uneven.

“It was not our best game of course. We had a great start. In the second half we struggled a little bit,” he told reporters.

“We have to fight to improve. It’s normal, we have situations we have to make better, much better. We’ll tell the team and go on to the next match, but with the result I’m happy.”

Barcelona defender Eric Garcia said the team’s second-half relaxation had almost proved costly.

“It was a hard game, we did make it harder for ourselves than it needed to be,” he told Movistar.

“But it has to teach us something — if you give any opponent a bit of breathing room they get on top of you.”

Atletico Madrid secured their win over Real Sociedad with three late goals. Diego Simeone’s team were without Julian Alvarez, who suffered a muscle injury in training on Saturday, but recovered from last weekend’s defeat by Athletic Bilbao.

Alejandro Grimaldo put Atletico ahead from the penalty spot after 84 minutes. Canada international Jonathan David scored his first goal for the club in the 90th minute, before Giuliano Simeone completed the victory deep into stoppage time.

Celta Vigo drew 1-1 at home with Malaga, while Getafe and Deportivo La Coruna also finished 1-1.