Barcelona Defeats Real Madrid To Win The 2023 Spanish Super Cup.

The 2023 Supercopa de Espana final takes place with an El Clasico battle as Real Madrid take on Barcelona. The Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh hosts the mini mid-season tournament between Spain’s top clubs

After four years of failed attempts, Barcelona and Real Madrid finally met in the final of the Spanish Super Cup at the King Fahd International Stadium in Saudi Arabia.

Both teams had a tough time in the semi-finals, and had to see off Real Betis and Valencia, respectively, via penalties.

Real Madrid have the chance to defend the Super Cup after winning it last season after a 2-0 against Athletic Bilbao, while Barcelona will be seeking revenge for the first El Clasico meeting earlier this season, which Madrid won 3-1 back in October.

Both team managers Carlo Ancelotti and Xavi Hernandez, started with their strongest line up coming into the game.

Starting line-ups:

Real Madrid XI: Courtois, Carvajal, Militao, Rudiger, Mendy, Camavinga, Modric, Kroos, Valverde, Vinicius Jr., Benzema

Barcelona XI: Ter Stegen, Araujo, Kounde, Christensen, Balde, Busquets, De Jong, Gavi, Dembele, Pedri, Lewandowski.

After 33 minutes into the cagey encounter, Barcelona breaks the deadlock, as Gavi takes a lovely pass into the left hand side box from Robert Lewandowski and coolly slots the ball home past Courtois.

Gavi's goal was the third of his career for the Blaugrana side. The last time the 18-year-old found the back of the net was nearly a year ago, on February 6, 2022 against Atletico Madrid in the league.

The current La Liga leaders, doubled their lead with Gavi again who was left free down the left wing, as he squares a simple pass for Lewandowski to tap into a wide-open net just before the half time break.

It was the first Clasico goal for both Gavi and Lewandowski.

In the second-half Barcelona made it three goals on the night, after winning the ball in the midfield and then Lewandowski plays it wide to Gavi on the left who puts it across the box for  Pedri to tap home an easy goal in the 69th minute.

Madrid get a goal back as Benzema scores on the rebound of a Ter Stegen save his in the 90+3 minute, but it’s too little too late and serves as a consolation goal.

The result means that Los Blancos failed to go level with Barcelona as the most successful side in the competition, while they have won it 12 times, Barca has now won it for a record 14th time.

It's also Barcelona’s first title since former player Xavi took over as the team’s coach in 2021, and since Lionel Messi left for Paris Saint-Germain.

Barcelona are currently top of La Liga, three points clear of Real, with this victory extending their unbeaten run in all competitions to nine games.

Both teams next return to Copa del Rey duty in midweek as Barcelona travel to minnows Cueta and Madrid face Villarreal.

Manchester United are next up for the Catalans in the Europa League next month, while Real plays Liverpool in the Champions League.

The next Clasico is set to be played on March 19 with the LaLiga title race ramping up nicely.