A first half hat trick from Vinicius Junior inspired Real Madrid to famous El Clasico win over Barcelona in the Supercopa de Espana final.
The Brazilian capitalised on a horrid outing from the Barca defence to bag his three goals, before Rodryo Goes capped off the scoring in the second half for Madrid.
Ronald Araujo also saw red in the second half too in what was a disastrous evening for Barca in Saudi Arabia.
How the game unfolded
Inside the opening seven minutes, Real Madrid broke the deadlock. Jude Bellingham caught out the once airtight Barcelona backline with a lovely slide through ball into the path of Vinicius Junior and, after drifting into the box and then around Inaki Pena, the Brazilian tapped casually into the empty net to make it 1-0.
Just two minutes later, amazingly, it was 2-0. Once again Los Blancos capitalised on some utterly shocking defensive play by Barca when Rodrygo stormed into the box completely unmarked before squaring to Vini, who slid in at the back post to bundle the ball over the line.
Barca finally showed some signs of life at the other end of the park after going two goals behind, with Ferran Torres hitting the crossbar with a sumptuous volleyed-effort from outside of the box and Robert Lewandowski forcing Andriy Lunin into a save at his near post after Madrid failed to clear their lines.
After a sustained period of pressure, La Blaugrana were able to get a goal back in the 33rd minute through Lewa. The 35-year-old exemplified perfect technique to make it 2-1, volleying brilliantly into the bottom right corner of the net from just outside of the box.
Quite soon after however, Madrid went up the other end and restored their two-goal lead.
Los Blancos’ third goal came courtesy of Vinicius, with the talented forward capping off his hat trick after winning a penalty off of the woefully out-of-form Ronald Araujo before slotting past Pena.
After going 3-1 down, Barcelona were able to retain possession but without ever really looking like threatening Madrid’s backline. In a bid to turn the game, Xavi Hernandez turned to his bench on hour mark to bring on Joao Felix, Fermin Lopez and Lamine Yamal, and judging by the fact that Barca conceded again three minutes later, it’s fair to say that they didn’t have the intended impact.
Barca’s defence was once again torn apart quite Madrid’s incisive runs in behind, with a sweeping move from right to left culminating in Vinicius finding Rodrygo with a low cross, and the latter firing into the back of the net.
Clearly frustrated at being ran ragged by Vinicius, Ronald Araujo was sent off in the 71st minute after taking a lump out of the talented Brazilian’s ankle.
It was a fitting end to what was a disastrous night for Barca.
GK: Andriy Lunin – 6/10 – Could do nothing about Lewa’s goal, but made a good save a few minutes before that to the deny the Poland international.
RB: Dani Carvajal – 7/10 – Played some wonderful passes in behind the Barca defence. He’s in fine form right now.
CB: Antonio Rudiger – 6/10 – Barcelona didn’t cause him too many problems on Sunday.
CB: Nacho Fernandez – 6/10 – Like his defensive partner, Nacho didn’t have a lot to do defensively.
LB: Ferland Mendy – 6/10 – Worked hard up and down the left flank.
CM: Federico Valverde – 6/10 – Made some clever runs from deep throughout the game.
CM: Aurelien Tchouameni – 7/10 – Had full control of the midfield, completing 92% of his passes and winning four duals.
CM: Toni Kroos – 7/10 – Just the 96% pass accuracy from the German on Sunday. Quite impressive that.
AM: Jude Bellingham – 7/10 – Set up the opening goal with a lovely through ball. He was generally brilliant throughout.
ST: Rodrygo Goes – 8/10 – Scored and bagged an assist. A great performance.
ST: Vinicius Junior – 10/10 – A hat trick in El Clasico. The Brazilian put in one of the best performances of his career on Sunday night, causing havoc with his incisive runs in behind.
Substitutes
SUB: Brahim Diaz (77′ for Rodrygo) – 6/10
SUB: Luka Modric (82′ for Vinicius) – N/A
SUB: Eduardo Camavinga (82′ for Kroos) – N/A
SUB: Joselu (86′ for Bellingham) – N/A
SUB: Dani Ceballos (86′ for Valverde) – N/A
Manager – Carlo Ancelotti – 8/10 – His team exploited Barca’s key defensive weaknesses brilliantly on Sunday evening.
GK: Inaki Pena – 5/10 – Couldn’t do too much about any of the Madrid goals. He was hung out to dry by his defence.
RB: Ronald Araujo – 0/10 – The defender has looked like a quarter of the player he was last season. Yet another off-the-boil outing from the Uruguayan, who gifted Madrid a penalty in the first half and was sent off the in the second. A truly awful performance.
CB: Jules Kounde – 2/10 – Completely all over the place in the lead up to the opening goal. He couldn’t lay a glove on Vini all evening.
CB: Andreas Christensen – 2/10 – Pretty terrible performance. Christensen looked like he was running in treacle.
LB: Alejandro Balde – 2/10 – The full-back tried to step up and play Rodrygo offside in the Madrid half, which tells you all you need to know about his performance.
CM: Frenkie de Jong – 3/10 – Saw a lot of the ball and did a lot of nothing with it.
CM: Ilkay Gundogan – 3/10 – The German looked old in the middle of the park.
CM: Pedri – 4/10 – The youngster will take a while to get back to his best after an injury-riddled first half of the season.
RW: Sergi Roberto – 2/10 – We refuse to believe he was on the pitch on Sunday night. Utterly anonymous.
ST: Robert Lewandowski – 7/10 – Scored a wonderful goal. He simply doesn’t get enough service in this Barca team.
LW: Ferran Torres – 3/10 – Barely got a kick.
Substitutes
SUB: Joao Felix (61′ for Ferran) – 5/10
SUB: Lamine Yamal (61′ for Roberto) – 5/10
SUB: Fermin Lopez (61′ for Pedri) – 5/10
Manager – Xavi Hernandez – 3/10 – His team looked utterly devoid of ideas on the ball throughout the game, and some of the blame for that has to be one Xavi.
Player of the match: Vinicius Junior (Real Madrid)
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