Raphinha’s hat-trick spree puts him on Cristiano/Messi pace

Raphinha is on fire in LaLiga 26/27. L'Équipe reports that the winger has scored 12 goals in his first seven matches for FC Barcelona and backed it up with a hat-trick against Sevilla FC this Saturday. The impact isn’t only the goals—it’s the speed at which he’s racking them up.

A blistering start

The paper points out that, before him, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were the benchmarks for similar “pace” moments in LaLiga. In other words, Raphinha’s start is starting to echo the kind of early run that defined those historical scorers.

Sevilla in the spotlight

That three-goal performance against Sevilla is the latest proof of how quickly he’s accelerating the Barça attack. L'Équipe’s takeaway is blunt: Raphinha has “spiked the counters” like those two icons did before him.

What’s next

Now the big test will be consistency. When a player starts at this level, any small dip becomes obvious—but right now, Raphinha has already forced a place in the conversation around LaLiga’s all-time elite starts.