Barcelona got rocked 4-1 by Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup final.
The roles were reversed from early 2023 when Barça demolished Los Blancos 3-0. This time it was Carlo Ancelotti’s men who emerged triumphant, and in some style!
Barring an injury, things went about as badly as you could possibly imagine for Barcelona. The mood of the game summed up by the complete absence of a remontada in the second-half. Hell, there wasn’t even the hint of an idea that the Blaugrana could come back. All their hopes and dreams seemingly left the field with Pedris’s shot, sailing inches wide in the dying seconds of the first-half.
Barcelona’s problem this season has nearly always been terrible finishing. They’ve been in almost every game, including the first Clásico in La Liga, but have simply not taken their chances. This has given their opponents the confidence to charge forward and assault their defence, where they have profited from the Blaugrana’s lack of a defensive midfielder to adequately screen their back-line.
That did happen in yesterday’s showpiece final. Chances were had in the first-half and they were nearly all wasted. Even Robert Lewandowski’s goal was him thundering home a scuffed clearance soon after a poor cross from a promising position.
But it wasn’t what happened.
What happened was Vini Jr. and Rodrygo tearing Barcelona’s back-line to pieces. Like sharks do to tuna. The second-half was showboating central as Vini, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham sort of coasted around the field while the Blauagrana huffed and puffed to try and keep up (they did not).
If you said that the Barça boys ran a marathon before the final, 97 Passes would believe you they were that much out of breath. Vini goading Araujo into getting sent off (a soft second yellow, but still!) and then torching Kounde on the very next possession, as if to say “I can do anything I want to you” was brutal dominance.
How did Real Madrid get into such a position that the second-half was a breeze? Where Vini was able to torment his opponents? Xavi usually makes killer adjustments at half-time and Barcelona play better after the break than before, and given they spent the last 35 minutes of the first-half being just as good as (or maybe even better than) Real Madrid… what gives?
The first 10 minutes is what gives.
Xavi’s killer adjustments work because Barcelona are still in the game. But last night Barcelona were not in the game. They matched Madrid in those last 35 minutes of the first-half, yes, but by that point the game already looked beyond them as they were 2-0 down after an opening 10 minutes that were as bad as any period during Xavi’s time.
How to lose a final in 10 minutes
What happened in those 10 minutes?
Short answer? Vinicius José Paixão de Oliveira Junior.
Long answer? Well, also Vini Jr., but more it was Xavi trying a gameplan that was functionally nonsensical. His Barcelona have always done well against Madrid by compressing space between the lines and squeezing the middle of the pitch. They don’t press high, but they don’t allow the Madrid midfield to gain any momentum heading into the final third.
Then at the back they make sure to get bodies on Madrid’s fast forwards. Ronald Araujo always plays right-back against Madrid because he can match Vini Jr. for speed and is also twice his size and usually wins the physical duels. Alejandro Baldé is also fast enough to keep up with Madrid’s forwards. Then in the middle then Jules Koundé and Andreas Christensen aren’t being asked to cover 40 yards of space against forwards faster than they are, so don’t get exposed for speed.
They don’t try and play offside against Madrid’s attack because the obscene pace possessed by Madrid’s Brazilian forwards makes that such a ridiculous high-wire act where, if you miss your mid-block press you’re going to get killed.
Well, uh, they missed their mid-block press.
And they got killed.
Madrid’s first goal sees Frenkie de Jong and Ilkay Gundogan close on Jude Bellingham far too lackadaisically, allowing him to get the pass off. This error was compounded by Jules Kounde trying to jump the passing lane and misdjudging the path of the ball, missing it entirely and effectively setting Vini 1-v-1 with Iñaki Peña.
Barcelona’s back-up goalkeeper is much less imposing than Marc-André Ter Stegen and his attempts to come out and confront Vini lacked gusto. Vini skipped around him with ease and slotted home after just 7 minutes.
Three mistakes in one. Not good.
But ok, 1-0 is far from fatal. Just knuckle down and get the ball back and the game can still easily be won, right?
Wrong.
Barcelona instead go hell-for-leather. The defence pushes even higher up the pitch in a manic effort to force a turnover, but the midfield didn’t get the message and were still in a relaxed mood. Dani Carvajal got the ball and no one went to him, so when the Spaniard looked up and saw 50 yards of empty space in Barcelona’s half he did the smart thing and pinged it into that space.
Yeah, you read that right, 50 yards of empty space.
Barcelona’s defenders had decided to try and play offside on the halfway line. They pushed up so absurdly high they didn’t even spot that Rodrygo had curved his run and was standing literally on the halfway line! Predictably this did not work and the Brazilian torched Andreas Christensen for pace before squaring for Vini.
Marc-André Ter Stegen may have jumped on the cross, he’s good at that, but Iñaki Peña is no Ter Stegen and while he jumped he timed it wrong and just ended up colliding with Ronald Araujo who had slid to try and block the cross (only to miss).
Vini was left with a tap-in.
10:00 on the clock and Real Madrid, arguably the greatest counter-attacking side on planet earth, had a 2-0 lead in a final against a team that has already struggled with their mental strength and defensive solidity.
Too little too late
Barcelona recovered, rallied, began defending Madrid like they always do and got back into the game (kind of). All that stuff. But Madrid were 2-0 up, so what did it matter? One good counter, or one good attack, and it could be 3-0 in the blink of an eye. Barcelona’s defence were living on a knife edge, and when you’re playing with that level of risk you are liable to make mistakes.
So sure, Lewandowski got a goal back, but when Dani Carvajal sent a cross into the area six minutes later and Iñaki Peña didn’t come to collect the cross (as Andriy Lunin did multiple times for Madrid), Ronald Araujo panicked when chasing Vini at the back-post. The Uruguayan put his hands on Vini’s neck to try and control him, and Vini smartly collapsed into a heap as soon as he felt contact. Araujo protested, probably arguing that he didn’t tackle Vini, but you can’t put your hand on an opponent’s neck and expect VAR to overturn the call. It was a penalty, one that Vini converted to re-establish Madrid’s two-goal cushion.
Xavi probably did try to rally Barcelona for the second-half, but Ancelotti also got 15 minutes to talk to his boys and the Italian’s side was winning 3-1 and he didn’t get his gameplan completely wrong.
Whatever Ancelotti told his men, Madrid came out with more vigour in midfield, closing ranks and leaving the two Brazilians and Jude to run the break. Barcelona struggled to find any space and grew increasingly frustrated and erratic. Xavi made subs on the hour to try to change things, and while Lamine Yamal and Joao Felix did play well, Pedri leaving the field killed Barcelona’s ability to play a perceptive pass to find the forwards in a good position to even shoot at Lunin, nevermind score, and thus Madrid began to find even more space on the break. They made it 4-1 soon after the subs, then Araujo got sent off and it was a mess after that.
But everything developed from those initial 10 minutes.
Would Real Madrid have been able to play with such confidence if the score were 1-1 at half-time instead of 3-1? Not likely. If it was 0-0 with 10 minutes gone how do Madrid handle Barcelona regaining momentum through the first-half knowing the score was level instead of heavily weighted in Madrid’s favour? How much better would Barcelona have been able to play with the confidence of a 0-0 scoreline rather than the dejected feeling you have to get after handing your rivals two goals?
Obviously we’ll never know, and that’s probably going to keep Xavi up at night for a while. They really threw the final away in the first 10 minutes.
Believe in… what?
After the match Xavi asked fans to “believe in this project,” but maybe he should say that to himself in the mirror, because why would he abandon his own tried and tested gameplan to handle Madrid like that? Why were Barcelona so high and so loose with the press? What did he think would happen?
This wasn’t an issue of injuries wrecking Barça’s depth and forcing them into using subpar players off the bench to replace tiring starters, as happened in the first Clásico this season when they had to bring Oriol Romeu on and subsequently lost control and gave the game away. This wasn’t an issue of Barcelona having several chances to put the game out of sight but missing them (as in that first Clásico but also the big 2-4 loss to Girona).
This was a game that was given away at the very beginning. This was a game where Xavi has genuinely not only been outcoached but outcoached in such a simple and effortless way that you genuinely wonder what the Catalan was thinking, or is thinking, when he asks fans to believe in his project.
What is his project? Usually you can see the vague outlines of one. A project constrained by finances and injuries, sure, but a project all the same.
Last night? There was no project. There was no nothing. That was as listless and pathetic as Barcelona have been under Xavi, and that includes when the injury situation was so bad he was starting Ferran Jutgla and Ilias Akhomach.
We didn’t see the quality and competance Barça usually bring in El Clásico. We didn’t see any ideas or innovation either. We didn’t see any tactical wrinkle or interesting tweak to try and rectify a desperate situation in the second-half. We didn’t see any clever subs. We didn’t see anything.
All we saw from Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup final was how to lose a final in 10 minutes. How to throw away a great chance to win some silverware and lift morale in the squad before a run-in where they still have a chance of three major trophies.
It was embarrassing and abysmal. And the only silver linings for Xavi are that Pedri looked really good, Vitor Roque is now an option to replace the sluggish Lewandowski, and Ter Stegen’s recovery is ahead of schedule and the club captain should be back by the end of January. With Pedri in midfield and Ter Stegen in goal, maybe a sense of order and prosperity can return to Barcelona.
Also: a proper defensive midfielder would really help.