Barcelona shows mark of a treble-repeat champion in Clasico rout

On Saturday, Barcelona dropped the hammer and then dropped the microphone, and boy did it look beautiful. A convincing 4-0 victory over Real Madrid served as a reminder that the Catalans are still the best team on the planet, a claim that should be validated by December’s FIFA Club World Cup in Japan.

Winning by that scoreline at the Santiago Bernabeu with the world watching raised millions of eyebrows, but the fact that Barcelona led 3-0 before the 55-minute mark indicated that this team is a level up on Real Madrid. And that was without Lionel Messi.

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To his credit, Messi did not seem the least bit rusty. Ignoring his first heavy touch, the Argentine’s degree of timing, difficulty and execution on intricate and field-changing passes would not have had anyone believing the 28-year-old had spent nearly two months on the sidelines due to a knee injury.

Messi looked good, and Barcelona looked eerily similar to the treble-winning side that scored against the highest caliber of competition in the highest-pressure moments. Saturday proved to be yet another example that Luis Enrique’s Barcelona scores against any and every opposition when the spotlight is the brightest.

A season ago, Barcelona scored in every Champions League knockout round game and the finals of the Copa del Rey and the Champions League. Simply put, no one has been able to muzzle Barca’s scoring trio of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar when the games matter most.

Messi’s return now clears the path to another treble. With Neymar and Suarez already in form, Messi should boost Barcelona through the next six matches before the team takes off for Japan. Four of those six games are at home, so Barcelona has nearly survived the FIFA transfer ban without any notable hindrance to its Champions League, domestic league or domestic cup campaigns. In fact, Barcelona could easily be considered the favorite in all three of those competitions entering the final week of November.

Barcelona’s dream of a double-treble is not only alive, but it is also beginning to seem more and more like a legitimate reality by the day. When the calendar flips to 2016, Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal come into the team immediately as reinforcements. Both players have been training with the squad since the start of the preseason, so both pieces should fit into a sickly thin Barcelona team as soon as FIFA’s transfer ban expires.

To add to the injury list, Javier Mascherano left Saturday’s game. Barcelona will likely enter the market and purchase more players beyond Vidal and Turan. A substitute forward would be expected to come in and replace the loss of Pedro to Chelsea.

Whether Barcelona buys or not, this team is good enough to make history. On Saturday in El Clasico, Neymar and Suarez completely overshadowed Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, while Andres Iniesta’s performance excelled to such a level that the white-wearing attendees at the Bernabeu applauded him off the pitch. Add Messi to that mix, and it’s hard to pick against Barcelona becoming the first club in the Champions League era to repeat as champion.

But Barcelona’s goal is greater than repeating in Europe. Starring Messi, Suarez and Neymar, Iniesta’s Barcelona is built to repeat the treble, and Saturday’s win went a long way to crossing off La Liga on the to-do list.

Shahan Ahmed is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow Shahan on Twitter: @ShahanLA and @perfectpass