\n<\/p>\n
Real Madrid beat cross-city rivals Atletico Madrid in the Saudi-hosted Spanish Super Cup to set up Barcelona showdown.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Xabi Alonso\u2019s Real Madrid beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 in a tight Spanish Super Cup semifinal in Saudi Arabia to set up a Clasico final clash against rivals Barcelona.<\/p>\n Fede Valverde\u2019s free-kick and a Rodrygo strike on Thursday helped Madrid claim a fifth consecutive victory across all competitions, with Alexander Sorloth pulling one back for Diego Simeone\u2019s Atletico, who came up short in Jeddah.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Alonso was close to the sack after a run of inconsistent form towards the end of 2025, but his team have slowly found their footing.<\/p>\n The Spanish coach led Madrid to a win over Barcelona in his first Clasico at the helm in October, before his team began to slump.<\/p>\n With French superstar Kylian Mbappe out as he recovers from a knee sprain, Alonso kept young striker Gonzalo Garcia in the centre of the attack after his hat-trick against Real Betis on Sunday.<\/p>\n Atletico beat their city rivals 5-2 when the teams met in September in a La Liga derby, but this was a far closer affair.<\/p>\n Los Blancos took the lead after just two minutes when Valverde\u2019s ferocious free-kick flew past Sorloth in a poorly positioned wall and rocketed past Jan Oblak.<\/p>\n The Norwegian Atletico forward might have done more to block it, and Oblak got his hand to the shot but could not keep it out because of the sheer power.<\/p>\n Valverde celebrated vehemently, slapping his own head, clearly delighted at netting his first goal of a difficult season to date.<\/p>\n By taking the lead, Real Madrid earned the right to sit deeper and force Atletico to try and attack them to pull back level.<\/p>\n Madrid hit the Rojiblancos when they could on the counter, with Oblak saving well from Rodrygo after he floated inside from the right.<\/p>\n Atletico began to create some chances and could have pulled level before the interval.<\/p>\n Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois tipped away Sorloth\u2019s header, and then the target man clumsily nodded Conor Gallagher\u2019s cross off-target from close range.<\/p>\n Julian Alvarez, who has just two goals in his last 11 matches, fired towards goal but was also thwarted by Courtois.<\/p>\n Rodrygo extended Madrid\u2019s lead in the 55th minute with his third goal in five games, continuing a rich vein of form across the past few weeks.<\/p>\n The Brazilian found a gap to burst through in the middle of Atletico\u2019s defence and kept his cool to sweep the ball past Oblak.<\/p>\n Three minutes later, Atletico hit back, with Sorloth finally finding the net with a header from Giuliano Simeone\u2019s cross.<\/p>\n The striker gave defender Raul Asencio just enough of a shove to put him off without being penalised for it before nodding in.<\/p>\n Atletico came close in the final stages as they tried in vain to force extra-time, with Courtois saving an acrobatic Antoine Griezmann effort, and Marcos Llorente whipping a shot agonisingly wide.<\/p>\n Alvarez flashed a shot across the face of goal deep in stoppage time as Atletico\u2019s hopes of silverware in Saudi Arabia came to a quick end.<\/p>\n Madrid face Barcelona on Sunday in the final at the King Abdullah Sports City stadium after the Catalans thrashed Athletic Bilbao 5-0 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Real Madrid beat cross-city rivals Atletico Madrid in the Saudi-hosted Spanish Super Cup to set up Barcelona showdown. Xabi Alonso\u2019s Real Madrid beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 in a tight Spanish Super Cup semifinal in Saudi Arabia to set up a Clasico final clash against rivals Barcelona. Fede Valverde\u2019s free-kick and a Rodrygo strike on Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Sorloth strikes at last<\/h2>\n
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