Carlo Ancelotti has accumulated 18 classics: nine victories and nine defeats, although few as painful as the last two, precisely Hansi Flick’s first on the Barcelona bench: 0-4 at the Bernabéu and 2-5 in the Super Cup final. It is the first time in history that Barcelona has scored at least four goals in two consecutive classics, a unique record for the German coach who surpasses Pep Guardiola’s mark (an aggregate of 2-8 in his first two matches against the Madrid as coach).
“There is no need to hide it: it is a disappointment. We have defended poorly, and that has hurt us. “They found the goals too easily,” declared the Italian coach in the flash interview.
In the press room, his speech did not change, on the contrary he deepened it: “We do not work well either collectively or individually.” Unlike the defeat suffered at the Bernabéu, in which Ancelotti highlighted positive aspects of his team—”The scoreboard does not reflect what happened. I liked the first half, we had intensity,” he had analyzed—he left Jeddah without mitigating circumstances: “I’m not keeping anything,” Ancelotti resolved.
Gray Sunday for Madrid: they lost the Super Cup, also first place in LaLiga after Atlético’s victory over Osasuna. “Sometimes we had to lose a final, right?” Florentino Pérez jokingly said to Modric, while they collected the medals.
The day was the complete opposite for Barcelona. After days as chaotic as they were sad for the locker room, the players found relief in the first title of the Flick era: the 15th Spanish Super Cup for their showcases and the 100th title in the club’s history. “The match we had played in Madrid,” Flick recalled, “gave us confidence to know that we could win this type of match. Today we showed it again, especially because of how we reacted to his first goal.”
Madrid and Barcelona usually charge around three million euros for their preseason friendly matches, but by agreeing to play the Super Cup in Arabia they pocketed seven and eight million, respectively, with an additional million for the champion. Not even the fact of feeling like visitors in Jeddah — where the stands, beyond the classic white tunics of the men in Arabia, were mostly dressed in Real’s colors — quelled the energy of the Blaugranas. “We have applied the game plan well, just like at the Bernabéu. We had to press, because if you give them space, they hurt you. We knew we were going to win,” explained Koundé.
Barça’s security contrasted with that of Madrid, oblivious in the first half to Ancelotti’s game plan. “At halftime,” Ancelotti explained; “I asked them to try playing soccer. In the first part, we had not done it. We had hit long balls and it was not the idea. The idea was to play. You can lose games, but not that way.” Not even the expulsion of Szczęsny gave Madrid any encouragement. “We were left with one more and we couldn’t create situations. “I am hurt by the entire game,” Ancelotti concluded. “After the expulsion we met and said that we were going to suffer and we were going to have to work,” Koundé said. And Flick finished: “We have to play as a team and today we did it.”
