Luis Suarez, on one hand, is not actually hopeful about his presence in their clash on Saturday, and Neymar Jr is left with two youngsters by his side, Sandro and Munnir Al Haddadi, to lead the Barca attack.
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“I’m very happy for the victory and how we played”.
But they weren’t behind for long, Neymar sending the goalkeeper the wrong way from the spot after being brought down by Diego Llorente.
He then turned Nacho inside out to draw another penalty in the 32nd minute, before again stepping up to again to stroke the ball past Tono.
Rayo came out for the second half with renewed vigour and could have drawn level when Guerra was played through by Razvan Rat, but his right foot strike was saved well by Claudio Bravo.
At the other end Neymar was guilty of passing when he should have shot when through on goal, but he finished his hat-trick in the 69th minute after Tono could only parry a powerful Suarez shot.
After Daniel Alves has pretended to polish his boots, Neymar made it 4-1 30 seconds later when Suarez unselfishly squared him the ball allowing the Brazilian to become La Liga’s top scorer with eight.
And it was roles reversed for the fifth as Neymar’s cross was thumped home on the volley by Suarez.
“Rayo has always been a hard rival for us and I expect a challenging game tomorrow”, he said.
Ronaldo set up a goal and scored another in a three-minute span at the Santiago Bernabeu earlier Saturday.
Real had to name a bench with seven academy graduates due to the absence of Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, James Rodriguez and Karim Benzema through injury and coach Rafael Benitez was happy to secure a comfortable win in the circumstances.
The Catalan club thrashed Madrid outfit Rayo when the clubs last met in Barcelona, 6-1.
Levante almost struck back immediately, but Keylor Navas’s brilliant start to the season continued against his former club as he flew to his left to somehow claw Deyverson’s powerful header to safety.
Ronaldo scored his 11th goal in all competitions this season.
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Substitute Jese skipped past his marker and drove the ball high into the net to make it 3-0 eight minutes from time as Real secured a morale-boosting win ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League Group A match at Paris St Germain. “We won 3-0 despite all the problems that we were facing and we leave with the team ahead (in the standings)”.
