Barcelona produced an improved second-half display to claim a 2-0 first-leg win against Sevilla in their Supercopa de Espana tie on Sunday evening.
The La Liga and Copa del Rey champions are now well on course to winning the competition for a 15th time, thanks to goals from Luis Suarez and youngster Munir El Haddadi at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan.
Sevilla have it all to do when the two sides meet again at Camp Nou on Wednesday, with Jorge Sampaoli's men failing to truly test Claudio Bravo all evening in the Barca goal.
Suarez, who had never previously scored in a Supercopa fixture, was slipped through with just six minutes on the clock only for Sergio Rico to thwart his outside-of-the-boot attempt down low.
It looked like being a sign of things to come, but that would actually prove to be the only real attempt from either side during a flat first half in Andalusia.
Sevilla had been the better side in terms of their shape, despite throwing in three summer signings from the off, but too often the final ball let the home team down when in front of goal.
Arda Turan, still filling in for Neymar in Barca's front free, failed to pick out a teammate on one of the rare occasions that the Catalan giants did manage to get in behind their opponents.
At the other end, Vitolo's shot was closed down well by Javier Mascherano six yards from goal, which proved to be the closest Sevilla came to breaching Bravo's goal in the opening 45 minutes.
Luis Enrique would have gone into the break with plenty of questions to ask of his side, with the visitors' task made more difficult by the loss of both Jeremy Mathieu and skipper Andres Iniesta to injury.
Any questions Enrique did have were soon answered by his players, however, as Suarez came close with a flicked header before finally making the breakthrough for his side.
It was a fine team move, too - Denis Suarez picking out Turan inside the box, who was happy to simply chest the ball down for his teammate to coolly tuck home.
Rico was required again moments later to deny Lionel Messi, with more smart link-up play seeing the Argentina international played in on goal, but again the Sevilla stopper came out on top.
Barcelona were certainly enjoying themselves a lot more in the second half, aiming to avenge a 4-0 defeat to Athletic Bilbao at this stage 12 months ago, and they came close to bagging a second when Sergi Roberto got a shot on target for Rico to push aside.
A vital second did arrive in the final 10 minutes, though, as Messi took out two opponents with his through-ball to send substitute Munir through on goal to deal the Rojiblancos a killer blow.
Daniel Lewis
