(EFE) — Barcelona ended their title drought and won the first crown of the Xavi Hernández era by beating Real Madrid with authority (1-3) in the Super Cup final led by an excellent Gavi, author of the first both and assistant in the next two of Robert Lewandowski and Pedri.
The Barça team was far superior to the team led by Italian Carlo Ancelotti, whose errors when leaving the ball were lethal. That’s how the goals came. Gavi opened the account at 33 minutes and delivered the sentence to Lewandowski (m.45) and Pedri (m.69). Karim Benzema made up the result in the extension (m.93).
Gavi was voted the best man of the match.
FIRST POST MESSI TITLE
It took 638 days for Barça to win a title again, the first since the Argentine Leo Messi left the Barça club.
It coincided, before the summer of 2021 in which the goodbye materialized, with the last title, until this Sunday, of Barcelona: a Copa del Rey won against Athletic Club de Bilbao in La Cartuja by a landslide (0-4), with a double of Messi.
Already with the trophy in their possession, almost every Barcelona player, especially the youngest, wanted to be photographed with it to immortalize a moment that, perhaps without knowing it, was going to go down in history.
0:48
Goal! Gavi signs a great play to overtake Barcelona in the classic
Barcelona stole the ball and in 4 touches they managed to break Courtois’ goal.
A story that has not been written in the same way since the departure of Messi and the consequences that it entails at a sporting level. So much so that Barcelona had to wait almost 21 months to be able to celebrate again with a trophy in their hands and a medal around their necks.
Without Messi and with financial problems, Barcelona has had to reinvent itself almost completely. And it is that up to 14 players have won their first title with Barcelona this Sunday; a fact that demonstrates the process of change and difficulty that the club now chaired by Joan Laporta has gone through.
These are Arnau Tenas, Álex Balde, Pablo Torre -who does not appear on the club’s website as part of the first team, and does appear in the subsidiary but entered the squad for the Spanish Super Cup-, Andreas Christensen, Marcos Alonso, Héctor Bellerín, Eric García, Jules Koundé, Gavi, Frank Kessie, Pablo Torre, Ferran Torres, Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Memphis.
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Lewandowski appeared to score 2-0. Barcelona clearly dominates
Frenkie de Jong with the jewel of a pass to Gavi who assisted ‘Lewi’ for the 2-0.
That is to say, only nine players from the current Barcelona squad were present at Messi’s last title as a blaugrana.
A drought that was cut in Riyadh, where Barcelona won its 14th Spanish Super Cup, the first since it was played in a final format of four -four editions played