Real Madrid and Barcelona each got off to positive starts to their respective domestic campaigns, as expected. The Spanish La Liga kicked off its 2016-17 season this weekend with Real playing Real Sociedad in San Sebastian today and Barcelona playing at home in the Camp Nou against Real Betis of Sevilla.

Barcelona, playing without Neymar who the previous day left his mark on the gold medal game against Germany at the Olympics (wonder if that victory serves as any sort of compensation for the inexplicably poor loss they had against Germany in the 2014 World Cup - also on home soil). Neymar of course scored a goal and netted the winning penalty kick for Brazil. 

Nonetheless, they still had Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, both of whom would be more than enough against any team in Europe most probably. Suarez led the way for Barça, logging a hat trick. Messi, perhaps given new powers from his new bleached blonde hair, scored a brace for himself and Arda Turan scored a goal while playing in place of Neymar.

While Barcelona was only missing one starter, Real Madrid opened their season in Basque Country sans Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and Keylor Navas. Nevermind however, as Gareth Bale and young starlet Marco Asensio provided all the firepower Real need to earn a road win against Real Sociedad.

Even though after the match Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane went so far as to say that Bale is still not match fit, the lone member of the BBC in the game scored a brace for the visitors. He opened up the scoring in the match's second minute, and ended the match with another in stoppage time, bookending a goal by the 20-year-old Marco Asensio.

Bale is a known commodity, but Asensio is the latest in the line of gems produced by La Fabrica, or Real Madrid's youth system. In the past the policy was usually to sell off young prospects and use the funds to put together an incohesive unit of established stars. Now however they've slowly progressed, buying superstars and surrounding them with a supporting cast. Now it seems club president Florentino Perez is starting to recognize a need to change his business model, essentially loaning out young stars abroad to become stars and bring them back for cents on the dollar.

He has somewhat shrewdly set up an extension of La Fabrica by sending former products like Dani Carvajal, Casemiro, Alvaro Morata and now Asensio out to Germany, Portugal, Italy and Espanyol respectively. With Carvajal and Morata Perez set up low buy back fees, essentially paying top-flight clubs to polish up their best and turn them into superstars ready to take Real Madrid to the next level.

And that next level may be being the first club to win back-to-back Champions League titles.f

Image via: Flickr