FC Barcelona legend Xavi has won his first trophy as the club’s manager in a 3-1 Spanish Super Cup victory over Real Madrid.
Gavi opened the scoring for the Catalans, with Lewandowski doubling the lead & Pedri adding a third.
Karim Benzema’s late goal proved to be a mere consolation for Los Blancos.
“We strengthened the midfield to look for taking over that area, and Araujo was really good stopping Vinicius counters. We left them with no options and felt very comfortable,” Barcelona’s Sergio Busquets said after the win.
“We knew that it was an opportunity that we had to seize. We are going through a time of changes in the club and in the dressing room, and this win will strengthen us to continue fighting for more titles.”
For the second match in a row, Carlo Ancelotti said after the game that his team was not firing on all cylinders — a sentiment he shared following a shootout win over Valencia in the semifinals — after being outclassed in all phases by Barcelona.
“We have to learn [from this]. It’s a difficult moment,” Ancelotti said. “We knew before this game that the team wasn’t at its best. This game has shown some issues which we need to improve. We’ll be back. It’s a blow, but we’ll prepare for the next game.
“The game started off even, there wasn’t much rhythm, but after they scored first, they had more confidence. We gifted them the first two goals.
“[We have] to work, to look at the mistakes we made. In the [semifinal] against Valencia, we were better in defence, and today we made mistakes again. We have to work on that.”
