Barcelona have rounded off their pre-season campaign with a 3-2 victory over Sampdoria at Camp Nou to win the Joan Gamper Trophy for the fourth year running.
The hosts had Lionel Messi to thank for their first-half dominance, as the four-time Ballon d'Or holder scored two and set up another to put his side on their way.
Sampdoria, winners of this one-off fixture in 2012, refused to give up and managed to drag themselves back within touching distance late on, but Barca were able to hold on with relative ease.
The Catalan giants made a real explosive start to the contest, knowing that they had to put on a positive showing in front of their home supporters following a heavy defeat to Liverpool last time out.
Arda Turan was the first to test Emiliano Viviano when heading the ball into a nice position for the former Arsenal goalkeeper to save down the middle.
The gaps continued to open up at the back for Barca to capitalise on, but the final ball was often just lacking on a few occasions until the hosts finally edged into the lead.
Messi played a key part in the breakthrough moment, as his audacious overhead-kick pass allowed Luis Suarez to nod home his second goal of pre-season from close range.
It took Luis Enrique's men five minutes to double their tally, with Sampdoria's backline again rather falling asleep when Ivan Rakitic lofted a ball over the top for Messi to coolly round Viviano and tap home.
The Blucerchiati were back in it moments later, though, thanks to some smart link-up play which saw Luis Muriel played through on goal with only Claudio Bravo to beat.
Muriel made no mistake to give his side a real lifeline at Camp Nou - a venue they won at in this competition four years ago - but Barcelona soon restored their two-goal advantage through more Messi brilliance.
Viviano was expecting the Barca forward to go with his left foot from a free kick on the edge of the box, yet Messi instead took it with his right and curled the ball perfectly into the bottom-left corner.
Enrique, as planned, made a couple of changes in the first half and followed suit in the second to give as many of his squad playing time as possible.
That meant a quieter second period due to the disruption in play, with the first big moment arriving shortly after the hour when Turan dinked an effort back off the crossbar from 12 yards out.
One of those to be given some second-half minutes was fringe player Denis Suarez, who himself came close to adding a fourth for his side only to be denied by the frame of the goal.
Sampdoria gave themselves a chance of taking something from the game a little over 10 minutes from time after Ante Budimir got in between two defenders to chest the ball down and blast past Marc-Andre ter Stegen - Barcelona's third keeper of the match.
The only real opportunity in the final stages of the game fell the home side's way, however - Suarez seeing his free kick superbly kept out by replacement keeper Christian Puggioni as Barca ended the game strongly.
Daniel Lewis
