The Supercopa de Espana is historically undervalued by La Liga‘s elite, but in this strangest of seasons the competition has taken on a whole new significance.
The Supercopa offers a great chance for Barcelona and Real Madrid, in difficult moments with bruised egos, to get their hands on the first piece of silverware available to them this season and set themselves up nicely for the second part of the campaign.
The Blaugrana held up their end of the bargain, edging past Real Sociedad last night in Cordoba. Madrid looked to do the same tonight at La Rosaleda, where they also faced Basque opposition in Athletic Bilbao.
They couldn’t, however, mirror their Catalan rivals and set up a Clasico final. Athletic went into the break two goals to the good, and despite pulling one back and having an equaliser disallowed Los Blancos were beaten 2-1.
Zinedine Zidane‘s men will now return to Madrid empty-handed while Marcelino, freshly appointed at San Mames, will prepare his charges to face Barcelona in the final on Sunday.
A sad sight was spotted post-game on Thursday evening, that of Martin Odegaard warming down by himself. The Norwegian playmaker didn’t get to take to the field despite Madrid’s lack of guile and creativity, and has fallen a long way from the starlet running Real Sociedad‘s midfield last season.
Los Blancos recalled him early from his loan spell in San Sebastian to use him this season, but things haven’t worked out like that so far. You wonder what must have been going through his head as he ran lengths of La Rosaleda’s pitch, an unused substitute ineffectual in an unexpected defeat.