We haven't seen much of Lionel Messi or Neymar this pre-season: the two missed FC Barcelona's campaign at the 2015 International Champions Cup in North America, taking some time to rest following the 2015 Copa America in Chile. On Wednesday, August 5th, they made their return to Barca for the annual Joan Gamper Cup-and did so in style. As FC Barcelona win Joan Gamper Cup, is this a prediction of the season to come?
Indeed, it became clear quite early on in Wednesday's match that the Messi-Neymar partnership hasn't lost any of its lust in the months since the two South American football stars helped FC Barcelona secure a 2014 2015 triple. Both men scored in the first half en route to Barca's 3-0 win against this year's Gamper Cup opponents, AS Roma.
A History of Success
The Gamper Cup is Barcelona's annual friendly fixture, hosted at Camp Nou as a celebration of the 
impending season. It's also a show of appreciation for fans, with cheaper seats than any other game played at Camp Nou all year. Needless to say, their fans were out in force on Wednesday, showing off the red and blue of the Barcelona home jersey 2015 2016, and cheering for their football team as loudly as possible.
Barca, of course, have a history of success at the Gamper Cup, having won the trophy 37 times in the first 49 years of the event. Wednesday's game was the 50th incarnation of the Gamper Cup, and Barcelona added a 38th win to celebrate. It's their eighth win in the past ten years, with only 2009 and 2012 ending in defeats (against Manchester City and Sampdoria, respectively).
High Tensions
Despite the fact that the Joan Gamper Cup is considered a "friendly fixture," and despite the fact that Barca players and fans were clearly having a lot of fun at Wednesday's game, tensions still ran high at a few points during the soccer match.
Indeed, at the 34-minute mark, Messi got into a bit of an argument with Roma defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa. Messi appeared to head butt the French center back before grabbing him by the neck. The referee broke up the confrontation, and while Messi probably could have been sent off for the headbutt, both players were just shown yellow cards.
Roma picked up two more yellows in the next six minutes before Messi took an assist from Neymar and blasted the ball through a cloud of Roma defenders to score. That made the score 2-0 at 41 minutes-as Neymar had deftly sneaked past Roma's Wojciech Szcz?sny to break the ice 15 minutes earlier.
The Second Half
The atmosphere at Camp Nou seemed to turn a bit friendlier after that. There was only one other yellow 
card handed out during the match (just before the full time, for Barca's Marc Bartra), and once Ivan Rakitic had increased Barca's lead to three-with a long-ranged bullet shot at the 66-minute mark-it became clear that the home team wasn't going to be denied here.
As a whole, the second half was a good deal less eventful than the first. Luis Enrique pulled Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suarez off the pitch a half hour from the end of the game, giving Andres Iniesta and youngsters Munir and Sandro Ramirez some playtime. Roma also made a host of lineup changes in the second half, but still could formulate much of anything to get past the Barcelona defense.
The Takeaway
So what did the 2015 Joan Gamper Cup tell us about FC Barcelona? More or less, this football game just confirmed that 1) Messi and Neymar are the best offensive duo in the sport of soccer, and 2) Barca isn't hurting at all from that summer transfer ban. In other words, the big takeaway here is that Barcelona are once again going to be a top contender to the La Liga title (and the Champions League, and the Copa Del Rey) during the 2015 2016 season.
Get ready for all of the action today, with a new Barcelona jersey 2015 2016 from Soccer Box.
