When the Real Madrid coach Alberto Toril appeared on November 12 in the press room of the Alfredo Di Stéfano stadium, he said that the team had taken a firm step forward this season and predicted that it would soon be very close to winning Your first title. Two and a half months after those words, Blancas face Barcelona (12.00, 2 and TV3) this Sunday) in Butarque with the Super Cup at stake, the second final of their brief history after which they lost in 2023 against Atlético in The Queen’s Cup in the same stage in which tomorrow they are measured with their worst rival. Barça, the team that commands in football played by women in Europe and does not lose in Spain with a trophy at play since January 2021, has won each and every one of the 15 clashes against Madrid since President Florentino Pérez He founded the section in the summer of 2020.
The Barca hegemony has made a dent in a team that this season has taken a step forward after its star, Caroline Weir, recovered from the ligament break that kept it in the infirmary almost the whole last year and after the signings of players internationals that have raised the competitive level of the template. Madrid will play in March its second quarterfinals in Champions, in the League it has settled in the second position with a good mattress of points on the third and in the group stage of the Champions League tute to Chelsea, one of the teams called to fight for the tournament. That level jump, however, has not yet been reflected against Barcelona, before which the Real has to tear down a football and psychological gap due to the weight of the 15 background.
One of the toughest blows was the last, a 0-4 in the league in November when the expectations about the good start of the team invited to imagine a much more disputed match. “Our improvement also goes through the mental aspect. Every day we are more competitive. With Barça there have been many games where we have been frankly well, and others have not been so good. We are prepared for tomorrow. We have tried to recover the players well, we have adequate energy, so we will surely make it difficult, ”Toril foreseed this Saturday at the press conference.
The Andalusian coach awaits a very different game from the one in November in the League, where everything that could go wrong for Madrid went wrong from the early goal of Patri Guijarro that conditioned the crash. The Real only generated 0.4 expected goals – an advanced statistics that measures the opportunities to score based on the quality of the occasion – when its average per game in the domestic competition is 2.4 and in Champions League reaches 2, 3, according to OPTA records. Nor did he have the personality to keep the ball before the most dominant opponent on the continent. The team was left with a possession of 27%, well below their data in the League (59%) and in Europe (56%), unable to combine before the suffocating advanced pressure that Barcelona practices. The Barca Tetracampeones – they had a Super Cup, Cup, League and Champions League last year – generate an average of 3.9 expected in the regular tournament and 3 in Champions, in addition to keeping the ball 75% of the time and 77% , respectively.
-Madrid, which will not be able to count on a key piece like the German midfielder Melanie Leuupolz after breaking the internal lateral ligament of the right knee in the semifinals against the Royal Society, this Sunday needs that his data resembles more to those who usually have to have that those he registered in November in the win that Barça endorsed. “We are ready. We have played games many times against Barcelona and mentality is very important. We know what they are capable of, who have special players, but we too. We believe in us and we have confidence. I feel that tomorrow it will be a different type of game, ”said Weir today at the press conference.
Toril, who has the young Colombian Linda Caicedo in a very good state of form, also launched a message in which she influenced the determination that her players must have to demolish the mental wall that involves competing and scratching something against the Barcelona: “What I always tell them: that they have personality, character, that they leave loose, confident in their potential and that we are us. We have to modify absolutely anything, we have to play with our virtues; And if they win us because they are better, we will congratulate them. ”
