Madrid Keep Bernabéu Trophy In The Bernabéu
Real Madrid claimed their 19th Santiago Bernabéu Trophy after serving up a football feast for the fans when they beat Sporting Lisbon 5-3.
The newly crowned Supercopa champions showed no symptoms of separation anxiety with Robinho, who appears to be on his way to Chelsea within 48 hours, as they served up a true footballing feast for their fans to claim the Trofeo Santiago Bernabéu for the 19th time and the fourth in a row.
Portugal’s Sporting Lisbon were the opponents in the 30th edition of the trophy and thanks to their very own attacking style of play, the 60, 000-plus home crowd were in for a treat as Real Madrid scored five goals in the first 45 minutes to practically wrap up the title.
After leaving it extremely late against Valencia last Sunday in the Supercopa by scoring four goals in the final 45 minutes of the two legs, Madrid had every intention of getting off on the right foot this time around.
They were ahead after just 15 minutes through Gonzalo Higuáin. The Argentine broke away from for Ché defender Marco Caneira and bore down on goal, lifting his head to take one glance up at Sporting keeper Rui Patricio before firing home the opener.
Arjen Robben doubled the advantage just three minutes later with a searing low shot from the edge of the area that left Patricio no chance, and five minutes after that, “Pipita” got his second goal.
Robben turned provider when he supplied the cross from the left and Higuaín finished off from close range. The visitors managed to pull one back through Marat Izmailov, but the three-goal cushion was quickly restored through a Raúl penalty.
Rafa van der Vaart wrapped up the scoring, and the title, three minutes before the interval when he got on the scoresheet when he capitalized on some shoddy Sporting defending.
Merengue coach, Bernd Schuster made numerous changes at the break and they came out almost a near second string side for the second period. The Portuguese outfit thus understandably took control of the game but the high entertainment level was still maintained.
Paulo Bento’s visiting charges managed to pull two goals back first from Yannick Djaló and then from Miguel Veloso’s 90th minute strike.
Higuaín, Robben and Guti were the best players on the night, even though the latter two only featured for 45 minutes, but the whole team will be encouraged and fired up with this performance as they attempt to break the Riazor hoodoo this Sunday when they take on bogey team, Deportivo La Coruña to begin the defense of their La Liga crown.