Barcelona crushes Real Madrid to win Spanish Supercup

Jeddah, Jan 13 FC Barcelona produced a stunning first-half display to beat Real Madrid 5-2 in the final of the Spanish Supercup on Sunday.

Hansi Flick's side led 4-1 at the break and despite seeing goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny sent off for bringing down Kylian Mbappe early in the second half, they were able to hold on with relative ease against the Madrid attack, reported Xinhua.

Things looked to be going Madrid's way when goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois pulled off two stunning saves in the opening minutes from Lamine Yamal and Raphinha before Mbappe put Madrid ahead in the fifth minute.

A Barca attack broke down with Vinicius feeding the ball to the Frenchman, who produced a powerful run from deep, held off the defender and scored with his right foot.

Barca continued to create chances, with Raphinha shooting across the face of the goal before Yamal equalized in the 22nd minute.

Robert Lewandowski dropped deep and pulled Antonio Rudiger out of position to create space for the young winger to run onto his pass. Yamal then turned inside and wrong-footed Courtois with an angled shot.

Barca suffered an injury setback when Inigo Martinez had to be replaced by Ronald Araujo, but they took the lead after 36 minutes when Eduardo Camavinga's rash challenge on Gavi gifted Barca a penalty, which Lewandowski dispatched into the corner.

Three minutes later, it was 3-1 as Real Madrid's defense gave Jules Kounde space to angle a cross for Raphinha to head home after the Brazilian stole in completely unmarked past Lucas Vazquez.

There were nine minutes of injury time and in the last action of the first half, Madrid made a horrible mess of a short corner, allowing Yamal to steal possession. He slid the ball to the onrushing Raphinha, who in turn passed to Alejandro Balde to beat Courtois with a low shot.

With his side 4-1 down, Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti brought on midfielder Dani Ceballos for Camavinga.

Real Madrid went close in the 47th minute when Rodrygo saw his volley hit the post.

But it was Barcelona's night and that was clear one minute later when Raphinha made it 5-1 with a calm finish.

With a four-goal lead, Barca lost some concentration as Mbappe ran onto a through ball only to be brought down by Szczesny outside his penalty area.

After a VAR check, referee Gil Manzano had no option but to send the goalkeeper off and leave Barca with half an hour to play with 10 men.

When Rodrygo smashed the resulting freekick into the back of the net to make it 5-2, some may have been thinking of another epic Real Madrid fightback, but Barca dropped deeper, defended narrowly and was able to take the sting out of the game with far more ease than expected.

Source: IANS