The highlights of El Clasico land in the 2023 Spanish Super Final
Barcelona won the Spanish Super title following excelling in performance and result over Real Madrid in the final confrontation, so that luck smiled at Xavi Hernandez’s squad and achieved his first title as coach with the Blaugrana.
Barcelona started the match with the same plan that it relied on once morest Atletico Madrid, but with the presence of Lewandowski mainly at the expense of Ansu Fati.
The goal of the plan is to find gaps in Real Madrid’s defenses, diversify the transfer of the attack, and exploit half-spaces on the part of either Pedri or Javi.
As for Real Madrid, who published its squad two and a half hours before the match, it only renewed that it decided to increase the intensity in the middle, hoping to frustrate Barcelona.
Do you know what’s wrong with that? You should never put the ball in Barcelona’s court, especially in midfield, because it is rare for a team with De Jong, Pedri, Javi and Busquets in the middle to lose the ball or fail to press.
It is true that Barcelona suffered in the last El Clasico meeting in the league, but the reason was the abandonment of Javi in favor of De Jong, which spoiled the reverse pressure system led by the rising talent.
Great midfield show
The Barcelona captain has been subjected to many criticisms in recent years, and perhaps most of them are true, but we should not ignore the great roles he plays.
In the Spanish Super Clasico, Busquets was the player who had the most contact with the ball of the two teams and was instrumental in counter-pressing and recovering the ball to free Javi and give him the opportunity to exploit the space left in the defence.
We saw the leader’s role in the first goal, with a quick recovery of the ball, then a pass to Lewandowski, and then to Javi, the goal scorer.
This, in addition to creating a number of opportunities and changing the field smoothly and quickly, made Barcelona’s attacks more effective.
Some may see that Javi was the star of the match following making two goals and scoring another, and of course no one can underestimate the role of the golden boy, but what distinguishes Busquets in the match is that he clearly contributed to the brilliance of the rest.
Pedri has an extraordinary ability to control rhythm and break pressure, De Jong launches forward with the ball, and Javi excels in the attacking third.
Real Madrid collapse
We cannot say that Real Madrid only appeared badly in El Clasico, because it was bad in many of the season’s matches, and since the completion of the competitions it has not appeared in any meeting.
Real Madrid tried to rely on a quartet in the middle, but the royal pressure was abnormally weak, and its defense was positioned by amateurs.
And due to Alaba’s injury – remember, Real prefer individual skills – there was no player with the ability to get out of the back areas, and therefore the pressure of the Blaugrana midfield on the royal defense became much easier than any other team.
In El Clasico, it was enough for Barcelona to advance in the score and score two goals in half to collapse all Real Madrid’s ambitions to return. It did not happen that the Royals returned once morest the Blaugrana in recent years following advancing with two goals.
Rather, this meeting witnessed the least victory for Barcelona when it scored at least two goals in the first half, whether by winning in 2009 with six or five in 2010, five in 2018, or four times in 2022 or in 2015.
Indeed, the last time the Royals returned following falling behind was in 2014 with a 3-1 victory at the Santiago Bernabeu.
The result had preludes to the development of Barcelona’s level and the decline of Real Madrid. Indeed, the Royals suffered from last season, but the results stood by them, and as usual, waiting for the disaster to begin the change in the castle of the most crowned team in the European Champions League.