La Liga
Barcelona hopes Super Cup win is turning point after woes
With a big victory over its main rival on Sunday, Barcelona got back to celebrating _ and to feeling good about its future again.
The 3-1 win against Real Madrid in the final of the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia gave Barcelona its first trophy since it was hit by financial problems and saw Lionel Messi leave in 2021, which set off a gloomy period of struggles on and off the field.
“Hopefully this will be a turning point,” Barcelona coach Xavi said. “This can give us some tranquility going forward.”
Xavi, the former midfield star who helped Barcelona win a slew of trophies as a player, had yet to win a title since taking over as coach not long after the crisis erupted in 2021.
He was part of the revamping process undertaken by the Catalan club to try to overcome its financial problems and the poor management by former club officials.
“We’ve been through some tough years, with financial difficulties, Messi’s departure,” Xavi said.
Barcelona’s last title came in the 2021 Copa del Rey under former coach Ronald Koeman. That was Messi’s 35th and final title with Barcelona before he left for Paris Saint-Germain in a tough blow for Barcelona and its fans. The team has twice been eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League since he left.
New president Joan Laporta took measures to try to fix the financial woes and went on a signing spree that gave Xavi players like Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha, though the results had not come until Sunday’s convincing win against defending champion Madrid.
“This is special. We had said that we were going to make our fans happy again,” Laporta said. “We have an extraordinary generation of players and they are being coached by a great coach.”
Lewandowski and youngsters Gavi and Pedri scored a goal each for Barcelona in the final in Riyadh, when Barcelona was in control from the start in one of its best performances since Xavi took over.
“It matters to me how we won it, not only that we won it,” Xavi said. “It was extraordinary.”
Barcelona had beaten defending Copa del Rey champions Real Betis in a penalty shootout in the semifinals of the revamped competition.
It was Barcelona’s first Super Cup win since the tournament turned into a Final Four format and was taken to Saudi Arabia in lucrative deal for the Spanish soccer federation. It lost to Madrid in the semifinals last season. The Catalan club has won the Super Cup 14 times, two more than Madrid, but this was the first since 2018.
Barcelona is also doing well in the Spanish league, where it leads Madrid by three points. The Catalan club dominated the league before Messi departed, winning eight titles in 11 seasons, but the last was in 2019.
Its next league match is against relegation-threatened Getafe on Sunday, though on Thursday it plays at third-division club Ceuta in the round of 16 of the Copa del Rey.
“We already have to start thinking about the Copa and the league again,” Xavi said. “We are not slowing down now.”
-AP
It was mission accomplished, said Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti after his side fought back from two-goals behind to snatch a rip-roaring 4-4 draw on Tuesday for a 5-4 aggregate win that put them through to the Copa del Rey final.
Ancelotti brushed off questions about a sub-par performance by his side and praised his players’ effort in what he considered a highly entertaining encounter.
“We have achieved our goal today which was to reach the final and there is not much time to think about it,” Ancelotti told a press conference.
“It was an entertaining game with some mistakes and a lot of good things. It was fun and we are in the final.
“I never saw ourselves out of it because anything can happen at the Bernabeu. When we have to come from behind, we never give up. We never give up, especially at home, with the fans by our side.”
Ancelotti said David Alaba was not to blame after he deflected two balls into his own goal, calling it “bad luck” by the Austrian defender, but urged his defence to play with better focus moving forward.
“It’s not good to concede four goals in a game,” Ancelotti said.
“Right now we are a team that has a lot of effectiveness up-front, but little balance.
“However, we can’t ignore what we did in attack, scoring four goals against Real is not that easy. I think we are doing quite well.”
Real Madrid, who have won the Spanish Cup only once in over a decade, will play either Barcelona or Atletico Madrid in a mouth-watering final in Seville next month.
Atletico fought back to hold Barca to a thrilling 4-4 draw ahead of Wednesday’s second-leg in Madrid.
-Reuters
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Real Madrid’s legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti will go on trial next week for allegedly failing to declare income to Spain’s tax office, the Madrid court which will hear the case has said.
Prosecutors are seeking a jail term of four years and nine months for the 65-year-old Italian, accusing him of having cost Spain’s treasury more than one million euros ($1.1 million) in undeclared earnings from image rights in 2014 and 2015.
The trial will begin on Wednesday and it is expected to last two days, a spokesman for the court said.
Ancelotti, who as a coach has won a record five Champions League trophies including three with Real, must be present for the hearings, he added.
Prosecutors accuse him of only declaring in his tax returns the personal remuneration received from Real Madrid during those two years even though he himself declared himself to be a tax resident in Spain and indicated his home was in Madrid.
They accuse Ancelotti of allegedly setting up a “confusing” and “complex” system of shell companies to hide his extra earnings from his image rights as well as from other sources such as real estate.
A Spanish court in 2023 ordered Ancelotti to stand trial over the affair, but did not set a date.
Ancelotti dismissed the affair last year as “an old story that I hope will be resolved soon” when he was asked about the case.
He took over at Real Madrid in 2013, leaving in May 2015, before being appointed at Bayern Munich the following year.
The former Italy international midfielder, who as a player won the European Cup twice with AC Milan, later managed Napoli and Everton before returning to Real Madrid in 2021.
Aside from his success in the Champions League he has won domestic league titles with Madrid and Milan, in England with Chelsea, in Germany with Bayern Munich and in France with Paris Saint-Germain.
-AFP
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Spain’s former soccer chief Luis Rubiales told Reuters on Thursday he would appeal a court ruling which found him guilty of sexual assault for kissing player Jenni Hermoso without her consent.-
-Reuters
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