Rakitic: Barca have become the hunted

Every club that faces Barcelona wants to claim their scalp, but Ivan Rakitic believes his team's success last season has made the Catalan giants even more of a target.

Barca claimed a treble of the Liga title, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League during Luis Enrique's first season in charge last term.

It was also Rakitic's first campaign for the famous powerhouse of world and European football.

The Croatia midfielder was on the losing side in a clash with his former club Sevilla on Saturday, as Barca - without the injured Lionel Messi - went down 2-1 at Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan.  

"It hurts to lose like that; we had a lot of chances," he said.

"We have to pick ourselves up, every team has their lows.

"We've won everything and it's normal that everyone goes hard against [us]."

Barcelona registered 28 shots in the match against Sevilla, nine of them on target. Luis Suarez, Neymar and Sandro Ramirez all hit the woodwork, prompting Sergio Busquets to bemoan the visitors' lack of accuracy. 

"Chances we have, what we need is to be on target," he said.

"We all have to put a little more into it."

Barca host Rayo Vallecano in their first match back from the international break on October 17, before visiting BATE in the Champions League.

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