Barcelona made it three wins out of three in Champions League Group C as they brushed aside Basle in Switzerland on Wednesday.
Goals from Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Bojan Krkic (two) and Xavi Hernandez saw the Catalans run up the joint highest away win in Champions League history, while Bojan, Carles Puyol and Thierry Henry all missed chances to add to the tally.
Basle goalkeeper Franco Costanzo promised his side would go out to inflict a first defeat of the Champions League season on Barca, but within four minutes he was picking the ball out of the net and his team were left facing an uphill task.
Dani Alves lifted the ball over the Basle defense who stood motionless as Messi rushed onto the pass and finished with a simple-looking first-time shot off his left foot.
Two minutes later and Barca nearly doubled their lead. Messi and Bojan exchanged passes on the edge of the box, but the final ball from the Argentinian was behind the young Spaniard and Basle were able to clear.
But Basle did not allow their heads to drop, and they could have leveled when forward Marco Streller burst into the box to bring Victor Valdes scrambling out of his goal and send the ball out for a corner.
After that brief threat however it was all one-way traffic.
Busquets made it 2-0 after 15 minutes with his first Champions League goal, when in a near-mirror image of the opener Xavi lifted a ball over the defense to the youngster who brought it down with his left foot and finished between the legs of Costanzo.
Seven minutes later Bojan added a third when he received a pass on the edge of the box, and with his back to goal and three Basle defenders behind him he turned and shot across goal and into the bottom left-hand corner.
It could have been four just after the half-hour mark when Messi had his shouts for a penalty waved away. Barca instead had to settle for a corner which Rafael Marquez headed goalbound, but Costanzo could only palm his save to Carles Puyol and the Catalan captain fired wide from inside the six-yard box with the goal at his mercy.
Despite wave after wave of attacks, Basle managed to make it to the break without conceding again, but within a minute of coming out for the second half Barca had the ball in the net again.
After a rare Basle attack Busquets launched a counter-attack with a pass from his own half which sent Bojan racing clear, and the 18-year-old applied a cool finish for 4-0.
Not content with that Barca added a fifth two minutes later. Hleb played the ball into the box to Messi, who in turn laid it back to Xavi to fire home a shot from the edge of the area.
From there on, Barca seemed content with their lead, but the game was far from over as Basle threatened a consolation effort after 69 minutes when Valdes was left scrambling on the floor in the area after he failed to collect the ball.
But if anyone was going to score it always looked likely to be Barca, and Bojan perhaps should have done better with a chance he lobbed over the bar after Costanzo had dived early.
Henry nearly broke the away win record with a sixth goal with eight minutes to play, but his casual header from Dani Alves' cross sailed wide.
