It was an almost perfect night for Real Madrid as they ended their run of three straight defeats to Barcelona in the Copa del Rey semi-final. Their 4-0 win ended a number of negative runs for Los Blancos and in particular their star man Vinicius Junior.
The Brazilian scored and assisted on the night, with Karim Benzema providing and converting on the other end of those. It was Vinicius’ first ever goal at Camp Nou, coming at his fifth attempt, as per Diario AS. It was a run that had last 377 minutes.
Meanwhile it was also the first time Vinicius had got the better of Ronald Araujo. Vinicius made the most dribbles in the match, won 70% of his duels against the Uruguayan and was generally one of Los Blancos’ biggest threats.
In the previous four matches where Araujo had been deployed at right-back to deal with him, Barcelona had come out victorious in all of them. Real Madrid had managed just two goals in those matches, and Vinicius had not scored in any of them. However that rund has been brought to a resounding end. Vinicius appeared to get under Araujo’s skin, with the Barcelona defender sending Vinicius a message via the press afterwards.