In the closing moments of the Spanish Super Cup final in Jeddah, as Barcelona held onto their lead, Ronald Araujo stepped onto the pitch. The Uruguayan had been absent for weeks because of psychological struggles following a wave of abuse after his red card at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea.
Araujo fell into such severe anxiety that he suffered panic attacks and required professional help. Things became so difficult that he asked the club for an indefinite break to focus on his mental health.
His return in Jeddah, even for just a few minutes, mattered more than any statistic. Several times during the match, even from the bench, he had been the first to jump up and get involved in confrontations to protect his teammates. When the final whistle blew, he ended up in the arms of his teammates, and later, as captain, he lifted the trophy. Ter Stegen stepped aside and allowed Araujo to walk onto the podium alone, holding the cup above his head.
Hansi Flick spoke about it afterward praising Araujo as the leader and the captain of the team. This moment of genuine emotion unfolded in perhaps the most artificial setting imaginable.
The Desert Spectacle
Six of the last seven editions of the competition known as the Supercopa de Espana have been played in Saudi Arabia. For many years, the Super Cup functioned as a ritual opening to the season. It was an extension of domestic rivalry. It was never a result that truly mattered, but it was a clash between two successful teams fighting for prestige in front of their own fans, and that was a battle everyone wanted to win.
Today, the Spanish Super Cup is played in Saudi Arabia, thousands of kilometres from Spain, in front of an audience for whom Barcelona and Real Madrid are global brands rather than part of cultural heritage and local folklore.
The purpose, of course, is not sporting but financial. The contract runs until 2029 and is worth around 40 million euros per year. The format has been expanded to four teams, and strong political interests are also involved, as Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez uses football as an extension of state diplomacy.
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During the first cooling break, the cameras searched for Florentino Perez and Joan Laporta. Sitting between them in the VIP box were three of the five most powerful men in Saudi Arabia. El Clasico has become part of a new reality in which football is no longer played for the fans, but for the market.
Fans in Spain protested. They turned to arguments about human rights and the loss of the competition’s identity, demanded distance from autocratic regimes, tried to apply pressure through political structures, and insisted on bringing the Super Cup back to Spain. But the federation had its own calculations. The Super Cup stopped being a preseason rehearsal and became a January spectacle for export, one that generates serious money.
In a way, this approach has made the result of the Super Cup less important than ever. Winning it was never considered a major trophy, but when everyone knows it is simply another way to collect money, there is little difference between a match in Jeddah and a preseason tour of the United States or the Far East.
Yet this season, the relatively unimportant match became a useful barometer for the domestic league, and that gave it several layers of interest.
What Was at Stake
Barcelona have a four-point lead over Real Madrid in La Liga. Real won the first league El Clasico but then fell into a crisis that led to intense pressure on Xabi Alonso. In the meantime, Real put together a series of wins and arrived in Saudi Arabia on the back of three consecutive league victories, but Barcelona became the true test of where the team really stood, and ultimately, what would prove to be Alonso’s final match in charge.
Since Hansi Flick arrived at Barcelona, six El Clásicos have been played. Barcelona have won five of them, with a combined goal difference of 20 to 11. The German has turned these matches into statements of dominance, with Barcelona averaging more than three goals per game in those encounters.
Barcelona needed a big win. Hansi Flick’s team lost not only the first El Clasico of the season, but also suffered Champions League defeats against Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain.
Alonso’s Final Tactical Stand
There was nothing exotic on the pitch. Xabi Alonso could not count on Kylian Mbappe, who started the match on the bench, and the back line was heavily weakened by injuries. That meant Barcelona arrived in Saudi Arabia as favorites, and it quickly became clear that they embraced that role. Flick’s team looked stable, structured, and tactically clear. The focus was on dominating midfield and progressing through the wings, with a relatively high defensive line.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, made a small adjustment.
Alonso had arrived in Madrid as a symbol of modern football. His Bayer Leverkusen side was defined by high pressing, vertical play, complex automatisms, and tactical sophistication. In Madrid, he never managed to show that level consistently, a failure that would cost him his position just one day after this defeat.
It was unrealistic to expect everything to suddenly click against Barcelona, especially with so many key absences, but Alonso started the match with Rodrygo and Federico Valverde on the wings. Both had clear instructions on how to stop Barcelona’s fullback and winger rotations.
This was most evident on the right flank, where Valverde and Raul Asencio did an excellent job limiting Alejandro Balde. The young left back finished the match with zero crosses, zero key passes, and zero dribbles. The main reason was the quality of Valverde’s and Asencio’s positioning, their coverage of space, and their refusal to let Barcelona trap them with rotations in that zone. This adjustment did not break the match open, but it made Flick’s job harder and showed that Real’s coach, in what would be his final game, still had tactical ideas, though not enough to save his job.
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In the end, Real were not bad at all. Alonso admitted to himself that Real currently could not outplay Barcelona in possession, and that the maximum they could aim for was, at best, neutralising the opponent. It was a pragmatic approach that nearly worked, but ultimately fell short of what Perez and the Madrid hierarchy demanded.
Barcelona had 68 percent possession and 16 shots. They recorded 41 touches in the box. Considering that Barcelona had the ball twice as much as Real, and therefore half as many opportunities to win it back compared to a Real side that defended far more, it sounds almost unreal that the teams finished level in tackles and interceptions, while Barcelona won five more second balls and cleared eight more dangerous situations. This clearly shows that Barcelona were better, more active, and more focused, and that they deserved the win.
Real’s Chances
That said, Real had their chances. They survived without Mbappe in the starting lineup, and Alonso turned to Gonzalo Garcia, who did the hard, unglamorous work to open space for Vinicius Junior. The plan worked, to a certain extent.
Vinicius ended a 16-match goal drought, Real created several more good scoring opportunities, and in stoppage time they had two excellent chances to take the match to penalties. But Barcelona had a clear structure. They knew where they stood and what they wanted. They stuck to their plan, and Real’s chances did not throw them off balance.
What the Victory Reveals
The win highlighted the form of Raphinha, whose relentless running, pressing, and intensity for the full 90 minutes has become the engine of Flick’s Barcelona. The Brazilian’s work rate has spread throughout the team, setting a standard that his teammates follow without question. His absence from major individual honors this season has only seemed to fuel his performances.
More importantly, the match served as a barometer for the state of La Liga.
Barcelona currently have a four-point lead over Real and once again showed that they have foundations they can rely on. Real still lack a clear spine and are searching for a player who can dictate tempo the way Luka Modric and Toni Kroos once did, while the defence is struggling with too many injuries. This team can do a lot, especially in a one-off match, as it created seven big chances against Barcelona, but the project clearly needed more than what Alonso could provide in the time he was given.
Flick has done that. For all of Barcelona’s flaws, this is a team that knows what it is doing. The defence is weakened and does not inspire full confidence, but the team knows when to slow the game down, when to accelerate, how to put pressure on the opponent, and how to close out a match. It is systematic, organized, and well-balanced in attack.
In the context of the Super Cup, Barcelona once again sent a message that they are currently a more organized, more stable, and tactically clearer team than Real. This time, they also proved that they can win a big match, and they did so with their captain returning from one of football’s most difficult battles, the one fought inside your own head.
The Contradiction at the Heart of Modern Football
Perez did not look happy watching Barcelona celebrate, and he was clearly unsettled enough by the result to make an immediate change. Alonso could adapt, make tactical adjustments, and show coaching instinct in that final match, but it was not enough to earn more time.
The problem is that Real Madrid do not live on process, but on trophies. And the Super Cup in the desert, however much it symbolises the decadence of modern football, still carries an old message. In the long run, those who win are the teams that are more logical, more organised, and more controlled. Right now, that team is Barcelona.
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And right now, they are also a team that knows how to stand together when one of their own is struggling. That this moment of solidarity and human connection happened in Jeddah, in a tournament designed purely for profit, in front of an audience thousands of kilometres from where these clubs were born, only sharpens the contradiction. Football has become a commercial product exported to the highest bidder, yet it still produces moments that transcend the market.
Araujo standing on that podium, holding the trophy with his teammates surrounding him, was not what the Saudi contract was designed to deliver. But it was what made the match matter. The Super Cup may have lost its soul in the journey to the desert, but Barcelona found something more valuable there: proof that even in the most artificial settings, football can still be about people.
Featured Image Credit
IMAGO / Nicolo Campo