Real Madrid 2–5 Barcelona

Real Madrid stepped out on the field at King Abdullah Stadium on Sunday night hoping for revenge for the defeat they suffered to Barcelona earlier this season.

Unfortunately, however, they got nowhere close to their objective as they fell to a 5-2 humbling at the hands of the Catalans and the score could well have been worse had Barcelona not had a man sent off.

Raphinha, Lamine Yamal and Robert Lewandowski led from the front for the Blaugrana and helped them take home the Spanish Super Cup title. For Real Madrid, it was more the manner of the defeat than the result itself which stung.

Facing the press after his team’s humbling in Saudi Arabia, Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti reflected on the result and what went wrong against Barcelona.

"We have to look at reality and it is that we have not defended well in the opposite field or with the low block. They have scored the goals very easily and we have not worked well either collectively or individually because we have lost many duels," be hegan.

Elaborating on the state of the dressing room after the disastrous outing, the. Italian gaffer added,

"We are sad and disappointed and with sadness, we have to go home. That’s how football is. Our sadness is that of our fans, but there is no choice but to look forward and recover the good dynamics we have had until this game."

The manager then took a deeper dive into the result and which aspect of the game his side fell short on, to which he admitted that they were poor as a whole.

"The game has not been good from the first to the last minute. With one more we have not been able to look for solutions. I’m sad for the whole game. I don’t stay with anything."

Speaking on the silver lining on the night, however, he admitted that Kylian Mbappe’s performance was positive.

"Only with Mbappe’s good game, who has scored a good goal in a good play. You have to forget about the rest and look forward."

Wojciech Szczesny’s sending-off was seen as a pivotal moment in the game as it gave Los Blancos over half an hour to inspire a comeback with an extra man. Ancelotti stated that he too felt the team would pull off something special and revealed his disappointment.

"When he was sent off, I thought we could try to come back to the game. I haven’t thought of anything else. You have to defend well to win this game."

"We have defended badly and Barcelona deserved to win. They have defended better than us," he added on the difference between the two teams.

Finally, he refused to point the finger at any individual and insisted it was a collective defeat rather than one caused by individual errors.

"I’m not going to name anyone. It has been a team problem. We haven’t defended well behind or in the middle. The team was not compact and we have to defend better again."