( CNN ) -- Barcelona put a turbulent few months behind them by sweeping aside Elche 3-0 at the Nou Camp in their opening game of the Spanish season . Lionel Messi was the standout player as he scored twice and Barcelona dominated despite having Javier Mascherano sent off and playing the whole of the second half with ten men . The omens initially were not good for Barcelona . The club ended last season empty handed under Gerado Martino . The club 's president Sandro Rosell had to resign over alleged irregularities surrounding the Neymar transfer . And star striker Lionel Messi has been embroiled in allegations of tax avoidance . Black cat = bad luck ? But , more importantly , a black cat somehow found itself in the stadium a minute after kick off and delayed the match . It evaded several tackles before nonchalantly walking off the pitch on its own terms . A steward managed to grab the cat as it attempted to enter the stands and received several scratches for his troubles . Messi , perhaps taking a leaf out of the feline invader 's playbook , evaded several challenges of his own to fire Barcelona ahead before half time . But a few minutes later Barcelona were down to ten men when Mascherano brought down Elche striker Rodrigues . He was the last defender and , deservedly , received a straight red card . But you would n't have known that it was Barcelona down to ten men given their second half performance . They enjoyed 79 per cent of possession as Messi added a second . There was also a goal for 18 year old La Masia graduate Munir . The whereabouts of the black cat is currently unknown . The underdog 's underdog . Meanwhile arguably one of the biggest underdogs in the history of top level Spanish football started life in La Liga with a shock victory . A few months ago it was n't even clear whether SD Eibar -- a club from a Basque town of just 28,000 people which had never played in the top tier of Spanish football before -- would even be allowed to play . The club appeared to fall foul of some idiosyncratic financial rules . Despite being self-sustaining and completely free of debt -- unlike a host of other Spanish clubs -- Eibar faced the prospect of relegation to Spanish football 's third tier . Idiosyncratic . A 1999 decree requires every team to have a capital equal to 25 per cent of the average expenses of all sides in the second division , excluding the two clubs with the biggest outgoings and the two with the smallest . It meant Eibar had to raise â‚¬1.7 million ( $ 2.3 million ) if they wanted to play in the top division . But a social media campaign allowed the club to raise the necessary cash to compete , a campaign that Basque rivals Real Sociedad probably wish had failed . The two met in a Basque derby on the first day of the season , but it was Eibar that snatched a historic 1-0 victory thanks to Javi Lara 's first half free kick .
Barcelona stormed to an easy 3-0 win against Elche . Black cat invades pitch before game , but does n't bring bad luck . Barca reduced to 10 men , but Messi shines . Minnows SD Eibar win first game .