Real Madrid vs Barcelona Super Cup: How Did They Fare

Spanish Super Cup

Real Madrid 2-2 Barcelona

(Özil 13′, Xabi Alonso 54′) (Villa 36′, Messi 45′)

For the Spanish football fans, for whom real football is still a week away, the season started in the most delirious way. What more can you expect than an el clásico for a start after the long and boring summer got over. May be it was just the Supercopa, may be not everybody gives it a shit, but still football in its best form with all the drama and romanticism can only be seen in a tie between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Much to the awe of most viewers it was a role reversal as Real Madrid was the team who played most of the game and Barcelona were the team who went away with the favourable result with an away draw loaded with 2 away goals. Real Madrid took the lead with a neat finish from their new number 10 Mesut Özil from a beautiful pass from Karim Benzema as early as the 13^th minute. It did not take long for Barcelona to make a comeback as first major involvement of Lionel Messi saw David Villa get to the top of the box and nail it with a clinical finish which will remain one of the best goals of the season. It was Lionel Messi who took the benefits of a chaos and misunderstanding in the Real Madrid to take his team to a 2-1 lead just before the break. Xabi Alonso finished off a corner that created confusion in the makeshift Barcelona defence to restore parity once more at the 54^th minute.

COACH:

Jose Mourinho:

Friends??

For Jose Mourinho this was one of the most important matches in his life. He had to prove to the world that not for nothing is he considered one of the best coaches in the world and that he can defeat Barcelona even without playing negative defensive football. And now in his second season as the Real Madrid coach he did not have the excuse of new team or lack of understandings. Though his team failed to cross the Barcelona hurdle once again, Jose Mourinho did pass his test with distinction. Noting down the absence of Puyol, Pique and Busquets at the back of opponent defence, he knew Barcelona would be vulnerable to long crosses. And he was successful in his tactics within first few minutes as a few long crosses created a fear in the Barcelona defence and his team utilised it to take a lead within quarter of an hour. However, even after playing better his team could not hold on to the lead until the half time break.

Second half brought out even more attacking side of “the special one”. Knowing that Barcelona would happily go home with a 2-2 draw, Mourinho had to be more attacking. He brought on Coentrao for Di Maria, who did not do much the time he played, and then replaced defensive midfielder Sami Khedira by Jose Maria Callejon. Introducing Higuain for Benzema in the last 10 minutes, he made sure that he had 5 fast attacking players and went all out for a win. Though a 2-2 draw at home is a poor result when you want to win the tie, but you cannot blame Jose Mourinho for not trying and never for killing football. 8.5/10

Pep Guardiola:

Whatever be the situation, Pep Guardiola manages to stay at the opposite end of the spectrum away from Jose Mourinho. Pep knew he had nothing to prove with the match and it was not necessary to risk recently injured players in a match that would not affect a lot in the season. He knew that this was the first time his team was playing together this season while the opponents did well together throughout the summer. As a result Barcelona team was seen playing calmly throughout the match without the normal urgency for a result that is seen in an el clásico. So it looked like the Catalans were playing for fun while the Madridistas fighting for even a drop of water. So, at the end it gives the Culés more satisfaction to see their team earning a draw playing for fun while Real Madrid fought with all their efforts. In spite of producing one of the worst displays of football in their recent past Barcelona are not at the receiving end after the match got over. 8.5/10

DEFENCE

Real Madrid:

Other than the second goal, Real Madrid defence produced almost a flawless display. Centre backs kept Messi silent for most of the time while Ramos dealt with Villa on the right and Marcelo stopped Sanchez on the left. More importantly, the forwards came back to help the defence whenever they lost the ball. The swift movement and the urgency to regain the ball did not let Barcelona play their own possession game. Though to be fair to Barcelona, they were mostly outnumbered while attacking due to their missing a few regular players at the back and creativity of Xavi. But still, whenever Barcelona tried to move forward, the Madrid defenders dealt them well. 8.5/10

Ronaldo gave some jittery times

Barcelona:

Barcelona missed their regular centre backs Gerrard Pique and Carles Puyol and defensive midfielder Sergio Busquets due to injuries. So the regular three who protected goalkeeper Victor Valdes from the evil attacks of the opponents, went missing against one of the toughest teams in the world at present. The makeshift defensive partnership of Eric Abidal and Javier Mascherano partnered with Seydou Keita in the midfield, did not fare very bad. But problems looked galore when the opponents thought of playing long balls into the box. More than once, Benzema found crosses on his head untackled. Had he been a bit more effective in nodding in the ball beyond Valdes the result might have been different. And when Real Madrid managed to put a hot on the goal, Victor Valdes stood like a wall in front of the goalpost.

The inefficiency of the defence in handling Madrid attack forced Iniesta to play much deeper than he usually does and it curbed the chance of Barcelona hitting back with their attack even when Madrid attacked with 7 men. Mascherano and Abidal did make a few well timed tackles to save the day, but they must do better in ball distribution and holding the game from the back if they have to make a stable defensive pairing in absence of regular defenders. 7.5/10

ATTACK

Real Madrid:

After Manuel Pellegrini’s Real Madrid lost 0-1 to Barcelona two years back, this is the first time they created so many opportunities in a match against Barcelona. Mesut Özil led their attack brilliantly in the first half with Ronaldo and Benzema providing regular support. Marcelo did make some dangerous runs to combine with Ronaldo on the left side to give Barcelona defence some dangerous times. The second half substitutes gelled with the team well and made use of the depleted Barcelona side to keep the most of the second half game inside Barcelona half. Fabio Coentrao with his speed and understanding with Cristiano Ronaldo looked dangerous to the Barcelona defence. However, they failed where it mattered the most, to score a goal. Creating so many chances against Barcelona says a few good things about the Madrid attackers, at the same time converting only two from so many chances created against a depleted defence will give Mourinho something to think about. 8.5/10

I played!! I scored!!

Barcelona:

Barcelona missed some of their star players in defence and that affected their attack too. Iniesta had to fall deep to help defence and whenever the ball moved forward the attackers were easily outnumbered. Thiago, Messi, Iniesta, Villa and Alexis, each of them had lack of options whenever they tried to go forward. Moreover, lack of match practice showed up in their game as each of them made a lot of uncharacteristic mis-passes. Dani Alves was busy handling Ronaldo and Marcelo and could not make his trademark runs many a times, neither did Keita join in many attacks. However, in the 15-20 minutes of dominance they had in their game at the end of first half, Barcelona managed to score two goals. However, regular attacking displays went missing as all the players looked a bit off-colour in the first match of the season. 7/10

For Barcelona, this was the first time that the first team was playing together. Other than Valdes, Iniesta, Thiago, Abidal and Villa nobody even played in the pre-season. It is expected that they will regain their touch and form as the season wears on. So that will give Real Madrid coach more things to worry about when they meet in the regular Liga game. But Real Madrid team looked much settled and hungry on the very first day. If this team maintains this and reach its peak, they will give the teams in the UEFA Champions League bad times when the time comes.