Barcelona's high-risk, high-reward strategy gives them the swagger to comfortably dispatch Espanyol

Between Dani Olmo's nutmegs, Lamine Yamal's 360-degree spins, and Raphinha's incessant drive to dazzle chasers, the first half of Sunday afternoon's derby game against Espanyol was another exhibition of mastery from Barcelona. 

At times, the blaugrana showed an almost effortless swagger to stamp their authority on their crosstown rivals, racing to a three-goal lead barely half an hour into the derby.

Manager Hansi Flick has turned this Barça side into a free-wheeling, high-pressing machine. The players have learned the positioning and mechanisms of the new high-risk, high-reward strategy that so far is paying off hugely.

In the past two weeks, Barcelona have fended off Sevilla, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, and now their Catalan rivals Espanyol at an aggregate score of 16-3. The Catalan giants may well be staking a claim to be the best team in Europe right now. 

A glance at the details of the La Liga table shows a stark difference between Barça and their eternal rivals Madrid in the first two positions: Barça's goal difference is +29 while Madrid's is +10, with the Catalans having played one game more. Madrid are the second highest goalscorers in the league (21), and Barcelona have netted almost twice as many as them (40).

At times with the ball, Barcelona's last defender was pushing 5-10 yards into Espanyol's own half, such was the extent of the high defensive line, a tactic that is aimed at squeezing opposition teams into submission by pressing them so far back.

Yet in both halves, the pericos had goals chalked off due to tight offside calls. Both were checked by VAR and both were correctly ruled out, but both are perfect examples of the high-risk, high-reward strategy of Flick's style of play.

The fact that the goals were ruled out shows that the strategy worked, Espanyol were caught offside, but if the opposition gets those narrow margins right, there is a lot of space to exploit behind Barcelona's defensive line. 

Bayern Munich and Real Madrid couldn't live with it - Kylian Mbappe was caught offside eight times alone in the clásico - but the real test to determine whether or not this high line has brought Barcelona to the height of European football again will come in the knockout rounds of the Champions League. For now, the blaugrana will toast another derby victory.