In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Zinedine Zidane’s Los Blancos cut Valencia’s work short and entered the finals of the Spanish Super Cup on Wednesday. They will be facing the winners of Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in the title clash fixture. Real Madrid thrashed Valencia 3-1 in the annual competition.
The German midfielder, Toni Kroos put his side in front when he curled a corner quickly when the defense was caught sleeping and goalkeeper Jamie Domenech was found out of position. Even though the goalkeeper tried to stop the ball, he couldn’t as the ball moved off his fingers.
Then, Spanish playmaker, Isco doubled the score for Real Madrid by slotting the ball back into the net after Luka Modric’s shot was saved by the goalkeeper. Isco lined up a thunderous volley to score the second goal for Real Madrid. Luka Modric finished off the game by scoring the third goal after 20 minutes into the second half. He collected the ball from Luka Jovic and scored it past the goalkeeper to give Real Madrid a three-goal cushion.
However, Real Madrid couldn’t finish the game with a clean sheet. After a brief VAR consultation, a penalty was awarded for Valencia in the stoppage time as the ball kissed Sergio Ramos’ hand. Dani Parejo converted the penalty and was on the score sheet for Valencia.
The stadium of the 62,000-capacity arena was almost full for the first fixture of the competition. Earlier, it used to be a two-legged season curtain-raiser between the Spanish league champions and the Copa del Rey winners but has been given a radical facelift to set off the things in the Middle East which is growing as a footballing power recently.
When Casemiro was asked whom he would prefer to play in finals, he said:
“It doesn’t matter. We know both are really tough. Atletico Madrid is a difficult game and Barca is too. We’ll have to plan well to win. The next game is always more difficult.”
“We were in complete control throughout the game, we came out with the intention of getting hold of the ball, that’s what we did and our plan worked perfectly,”
