Vinicius Junior. scored a first-half hat-trick as Real Madrid beat arch rivals Barcelona to win the Spanish Super Cup 4-1 on Sunday (Jan 14) at Al-Awwal stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Barcelona, who had won the Supercopa last year against Real, were miserable this year, especially in the second half where they didn’t record a single shot on the target. Adding more to their misery, Barca were left with only 10 players on the field after Ronald Araújo was shown red card in the 71st minute.

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Real started the game full throttle as Vinicius Jr. scored the first for his three goal in the seventh minute followed by another one three minutes later. Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski scored one for the team in 33rd minute to cut the deficit to one goal. Vinicius, however, scored another goal six minutes later in 39th minute to make the score board read 3-1.

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Come second half, Barcelona never got going as Real Madrid’s Rodrygo scored last goal of the night in 64th minute to make the scoreline 4-1. Real coach Carlo Ancelotti, however, said after the match the result doesn’t show how difficult a match it was.

“I didn’t expect us to score three so soon, but we took advantage of their high defensive line with an inspired Vinicius tonight,” Real Ancelotti told Movistar Plus after the win.

“It was a difficult match, the result seems too much for the way Barcelona played. At 3-1 it was even. At 4-1 they dropped their arms a bit. We are happy,” he added.

Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez, on the other hand, conceded that the team played ‘their worst game.’

“We have not shown the level required for a match like this,” Xavi told in a press conference.

“We played our worst game. We weren’t comfortable at any point. Madrid hurt us on the counter. I apologise to the fans because it was hard for us to compete and we showed our worst side.”

This was Real Madrid’s 13th win in the Spanish Supercopa, one short than Barcelona’s record 14 titles. 

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