Sports

Real Madrid whip Barcelona 4-1 to win Super Cup

Vinicius Junior struck a first-half hat-trick to fire Real Madrid to Spanish Super Cup glory in a thumping 4-1 win over Barcelona in Saudi Arabia on Sunday night.

Robert Lewandowski scored for Barcelona, who had defender Ronald Araujo sent off in the second half on what coach Xavi Hernandez described as the team’s “worst” night.

Rodrygo rounded off Real Madrid’s rout as they won the competition for the 13th time, avenging last year’s final defeat by record 14-time winners Barcelona.

“(Vinicius) needed two or three games to get back to his best level, and he’s back to it,” Real Madrid manager, Carlo Ancelotti, said after the game.

The Italian has now gone level with Zinedine Zidane on 11 trophies won at the helm of Los Blancos, behind only Miguel Munoz on 14.

“I’m happy, but now we’ve got to go for the 12th,” Ancelotti added.

Spanish champions Barcelona were hoping a victory could kick-start their season, as it did last year, but were left soundly beaten after Vinicius netted two early goals.

Xavi said: “I’m disappointed and sad. This is football and today we have to deal with the bitter side of the game.

“We had a lot of hope and excitement going into the final and we’ve had our worst game of all of them.

“We need to reset ourselves and fight for the three trophies we have left.

“Football is a game of errors and we did not minimise ours and we maximised Madrid’s strengths.”

Xavi turned to a four-man midfield to try and keep the ball to reduce Madrid’s opportunities to counterattack with flying wingers Vinicius and Rodrygo – it didn’t work.

Pedri started in place of winger Raphinha, who suffered a hamstring injury in the semi-final win over Osasuna.

Ancelotti brought in midfielder Toni Kroos, who like in the thrilling semi-final derby win over Atletico Madrid, was jeered by spectators at the Al-Awwal Park stadium in Riyadh, for criticising players moving to the Saudi league from Europe.

The Star