Real Madrid 4-1 Barcelona. 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.
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.
