A much superior Barcelona beat Real Madrid again this Sunday for the sixteenth consecutive time to win its fifth Spanish Super Cup. For the first time in a final, Barça devastated White in a match that was decided in added time of the first half, when Ewa Pajor crossed a header from a corner kick taken by the fantastic Graham Hansen. The Pole went ahead of Toletti at the near post to score the third Barça goal in the last play before going to the locker room. The goal was a punch in the stomach for Madrid, hit psychologically with a 3-0 lead in a first period in which at times it did compete against the team that dominates in Europe but in which errors in defense punished it greatly.
5
Cata Coll, Irene Paredes, Fridolina Rolfö (Esmee Brugts, min. 64), Ona Batlle (Jana Fernández, min. 77), Mapi León, Alexia Putellas, Patri Guijarro (Keira Walsh, min. 84), Aitana Bonmatí, Ewa Pajor , Clàudia Pina (Vicky López, min. 77) and Graham (Salma Paralluelo, min. 64)
0
Misa, Maëlle Lakrar, Olga Carmona, María Méndez, Antônia, Filippa Angeldahl, Alba Redondo (Eva Navarro, min. 65), Sandie Toletti, Linda Caicedo, Caroline Weir (Athenea del Castillo, min. 66) and Signe Bruun (Teresa Abelleira , min. 78)
Goals
1-0 min. 30: Graham. 2-0 min. 36: Ewa Pajor. 3-0 min. 48: Ewa Pajor. 4-0 min. 61: Patri Guijarro. 5-0 min. 84: Alexia Putellas
Referee Olatz Rivera Olmedo
yellow cards
Sandie Toletti (min. 35), Jana Fernández (min. 80)
The match ended at half-time with no plot other than knowing how many goals Barcelona, a vintage team, would score against a Real team that is still trying to take its first steps into the elite of this sport. In the end there were five, two less than what he scored last year to torture Levante in the final, those he scored to lift his fourteenth national title of the 16 that have been at stake since the 2019-2020 season. Since then, only the 2021 Super Cup and the 2023 Queen’s Cup have escaped them, when they were eliminated in the round of 16 due to improper alignment.
Toril, conditioned by the injury of midfielder Leupolz, started two wingers on the field like Alba Redondo and Linda Caicedo occupying the wings of the 4-4-2, with Angeldahl and Toletti in the double pivot. Until today, the white coach had used three midfielders in games against the most powerful rivals. The change tried to give Madrid more speed on the wings, with Bruun up front to accompany Weir, but the team had a hard time trying to get by every time they stole the ball from Barça, always with one more midfielder with the trivote that they formed Guijarro, Bonmatí and Putellas.
Barcelona, the most dominant team in Europe, parked itself in Real’s field from the beginning. The script is always the same in the Blaugranas’ games: they mix and mix in three quarters waiting to find the precise combination with which to dismantle the rival defense and suffocate with suffocating forward pressure every time they suffer a loss. Already in the eighth minute, Pajor put the ball into the net after a shot by Hansen that was poorly cleared by Misa, but the VAR annulled the goal for offside. Madrid responded immediately to Barcelona’s first warning. Carmona stole the ball at the start and threw to Caicedo. The Colombian winger’s shot was rejected by Paredes and went to a corner.
It was one of the few bites that Madrid could give to the culé defense. White missed the last pass on the few times they were able to overcome the pressure, unable to really worry Cata Coll while Barça surrounded Misa’s goal with shots from Alexia, Pina and Pajor. The azulgranas finally found the first goal in a play in which Lakrar made a mistake in the clearance. The ball was very short and fell to Graham Hansen. His shot from the front hit the French center and changed trajectory to cancel Misa’s attempt.
Madrid scrambled and gave another scratch. Carmona combined with Redondo on the left wing. The Spanish attacker’s center ended up in Bruun, who combined with Weir. Mapi León blocked the Scot’s point-blank shot and Barcelona dealt another psychological blow by hunting down the second goal in the subsequent play. Grahan Hansen filtered a wonderful ball for Ona behind the white defense and Pajor got ahead of María Méndez and Lakrar to score.
With the third goal in added time in the first half, the second was a horror movie for Madrid. White lost the ball again and again due to Barcelona’s advanced pressure. Neither Toletti nor Angeldahl were able to organize from the middle of the field a team that had Teresa Abelleira on the bench, the player with the most ability to organize the game.
The clash at times resembled a handball match, with the Barcelona players in front of the Madrid area launching continuous bursts at Misa’s goal. Grahan Hansen missed two shots by centimeters after the VAR corrected a penalty that the referee had called on Bonmatí, but Guijarro scored a postcard goal from the front with a shot that slipped into Misa’s left corner.
Madrid, who tried to shake up the game with the introduction of Eva Navarro, Athenea and Abelleira, were not able to shoot at goal with danger until the 76th minute, when Coll saved a one-on-one against Caicedo. Alexia, starting for the first time in a final two and a half years later and very close to her best version, closed the rout of a vintage team that won its first title of the year today in Leganés with the stadium almost full. Putellas herself later raised the trophy given to her by Sergio Merchán, vice president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, after the federation boss, Rafael Louzán, did not attend the final due to the storm that prevented his flight from taking off from Galicia to Madrid. this morning to see the triumph of a team that in Spain has no rival for another season.
