They’re a club that are used to breaking records, and Barcelona broke another one in their opening fixture of the 2018/19 La Liga season on Saturday night – assembling their most expensive substitute’s bench ever.
Never before in the history of the club had they had so many millions sitting next to their coach on the bench for the game against Alaves.
Ernesto Valverde stuck with a starting line-up that had largely contributed to lifting the La Liga crown last term, with all of his summer additions sat together on the Camp Nou bench.
Among them was the most expensive signing in the club’s history, Philippe Coutinho, who was called upon to make the difference in the opening clash of the season, with the hosts eventually sauntering to a 3-0 win, but only after Lionel Messi had opened the scoring in the 64th minute.
Coutinho emerged to seal the points seven minutes from time, with Barca icon Messi wrapping up the win in stoppage time.
Vidal completed a transfer to Barcelona from Bayern Munich this summer.
In total, the sum of money paid for the seven subs totalled €294 million.
Dutch back-up goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen was the cheapest at €13m, while Coutinho, obviously, was the most expensive at a whopping €155m.
Brazilian winger Malcom (€41m), French defender Clement Lenglet (€35m), another Brazilian Arthur (€31m) and Chile veteran Arturo Vidal (€19m) made up the star-studded subs’ bench.
And that was just for six players too, with the seventh, Rafinha, a product of the club’s youth system who didn’t cost a thing.