Once again, Barcelona is the champion of the Women's Super Cup. For the third consecutive season, the fourth in five years, the Blaugrana lift the first title of the season after ruthlessly destroying Levante yesterday (7-0). They did it this Saturday at the Butarque Municipal Stadium. One more procedure. Giráldez's team finished off a practically perfect tournament.
Between the classic against Real Madrid in the semifinals and the final against Levante, the Blaugranas have scored 11 goals and have not conceded any. And they arrived in Leganés for this Super Cup week without several of their pillars (Alexia, Mapi León, Rolfö and Jana Fernández, injured). But not even absences are capable of creating worries.
Levante could do little in its return to a Super Cup final three years later. The Granotas, who are second in League F, had hoped to break their streak against the Blaugrana: they have not beaten Barça since 2017 (one draw and 13 losses). After beating Atlético in an agonizing semi-final resolved in extra time, Sánchez Vera proposed a scheme with two lines of four very close together, with almost no space for the culés to move in intermediate spaces. All the offensive weight fell on Alba Redondo and, above all, on Mayra Ramírez. The Colombian was about to open the scoring as soon as she started after a mistake by Cata Coll, who was overconfident, but Engen saved the score with a miraculous foot that took the ball over the line. The midfielder had another chance a few minutes later, but was unsuccessful in the one-on-one.
INMA FLORES
The scare woke up Barça and woke up the beast. Giráldez asked his team to increase the pressure and in the blink of an eye, they bottled Levante in their field. Granota's resistance lasted just 10 minutes, when Salma Paralluelo scored her first goal of the night, and was left in ruins at the end of the first half, with the scoreboard showing 5-0 after a real gale. The Spanish forward opened the scoring after a great assist from Hansen, who joined the party and scored the second with a right foot after collecting a rebound in the area. In the action following the Swede's goal, Batlle scored the third in a play in which Bonmatí crashed the ball into the post. Barça did not let Levante raise its head and struck again with Salma and Hansen as scorers, thus certifying the defeat with 45 minutes left.
The enormous distance on the scoreboard favored a more dominant start to the second half by Levante. Giráldez, for his part, retired Irene Paredes to bring on Martina Fernández, 19 years old. For the first time in many minutes, the granotas approached the Cata Coll area, although without materializing on dangerous occasions. The winner of the Ballon d'Or and The Best, Aitana Bonmatí, had not had much impact in the semifinals against Madrid, nor was she being the protagonist in the final.
But in one fell swoop, the Spaniard put on the mantle of the best player in the world, first with the assist for Hansen's third goal, and then with a great goal overcoming Holmgren's exit. With the score 7-0 and more than half an hour ahead, Giráldez retired Paralluelo, Hansen and Guijarro, to bring on Oshoala, Vicky López and Claudia Pina. The Madrid native was among the most applauded by the Butarque crowd, due to his past at Madrid CFF, and was about to leave her mark on the match if it weren't for Holmgren's great save. Barcelona's dominance was not so overwhelming in the final minutes, but it was enough to make it through the final without a scratch despite Levante's attempts to score the winning goal. But this Barça doesn't leave even crumbs behind.
With this new trophy, the Blaugrana have 23 titles in their cabinets (eight leagues, two Champions Leagues, nine Queen's Cups and four Super Cups). Of the last 13 national tournaments, the Blaugrana have won 11, this being their third Super Cup in a row. Since 2020, the only Spanish competitions that have escaped them are last year's Cup and the 2021 Super Cup.
But this dominance does not diminish the ambition of Giraldez's team, whose greatest desire is to achieve the historic poker of titles: “This is the first, if we win it later we will go for the next one,” said Irene Paredes in the press conference prior to the final. “We are ambitious, I think no one has ever won the four possible titles in one season [Liga, Champions, Copa de la Reina y Supercopa]. “We want to continue breaking records,” stated the headquarters. For now, they already have the first one.
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