Barcelona: Invincible again?

Barcelona, now under its third manager (Gerardo Martino) in little over a year, opened up its title defense in La Liga on Sunday night against Levante with a resounding answer to all those who claim that tiki-taka, the irrepressible style of passing and movement, is as dead as the dodo.
For 45 minutes on Sunday, Xavi Hernández orchestrated the attack, Cesc Fàbregas picked the holes, and Lionel Messi led the strikers in a 6-0 devastation by halftime of poor Levante. One could actually feel how devastated the Levante players were at halftime. Some of them might even have been asking for being substituted as they were almost being mocked by the brilliant play of Barcelona. In the first half alone, Xavi completed more passes than the entire opposing 11 mustered among them. Five players — Alexis Sánchez, Messi twice, Dani Alves, Pedro twice, and Xavi — scored. And one player, Fàbregas, created five of their goals and made his point that he will stay if Barcelona resists the mounting cash offer that Manchester United puts on the table to try to buy him. Barça held Neymar and Andrés Iniesta back for the final half-hour, by which time their colleagues had eased up on their rout of Levante.
This is the way Barcelona would want to play the whole year. But can they bring out this class against formidable opponents like Real Madrid, Manchester United and Bayern Munich? Super Cup match against Madrid will give some answers.
For now, Tiki-taka all the way.