Barcelona edge Real Madrid 3-2 in Saudi Super Cup clásico as Alonso exits, Arbeloa takes over

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — A slip, a deflection and another Barcelona trophy

Raphinha slipped as he struck the ball and watched it spin off a defender’s back, looping high over Thibaut Courtois and into the net. The 73rd-minute shot—part mishit and part deflection—settled another wild clásico on Sunday night, giving Barcelona a 3-2 win over Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup final and setting off a chain of events that reached all the way back to Madrid.

By Monday afternoon, Real Madrid announced that coach Xabi Alonso was leaving “by mutual agreement,” one day after the club lost its third straight final to its biggest rival. Álvaro Arbeloa, a former Madrid right back and youth coach, was promoted to take his place.

The match at King Abdullah Sports City delivered the drama expected when Barcelona and Real Madrid meet, even as the venue underscored how Spanish football’s fiercest rivalry has been turned into a showcase for Saudi Arabia’s push to host major sporting events.

Raphinha leads the way

Barcelona, under German coach Hansi Flick, claimed a record 16th Supercopa de España title and their second in a row. The victory extended the club’s winning run in all competitions to 10 matches and maintained a four-point lead over Madrid in the Spanish league at the season’s midpoint.

Raphinha, the Brazilian winger signed from Leeds United in 2022, scored twice and was named player of the match and tournament most valuable player. He became the first player to score four goals in a single edition of the Spanish Super Cup, with two in the final and two earlier in the four-team mini-tournament.

His first goal came in the 36th minute, when he cut in from the left and drilled a low shot past Courtois after a long spell of Barcelona possession.

Four goals in 11 minutes before halftime

What followed in first-half stoppage time was a burst that turned the game into a three-act play before the break.

In the second of at least three added minutes, Vinícius Júnior pulled Madrid level with a solo run and close-range finish that sliced through Barcelona’s defense. Barely two minutes later, Robert Lewandowski restored Barcelona’s lead, lifting a shot over Courtois and in off the far post after being slipped through by Pedri. Madrid players protested to the referee that the goal arrived after the originally indicated stoppage time.

There was still time for another twist. In the sixth minute of added time, Gonzalo García reacted quickest to a rebound off the crossbar from Dean Huijsen’s header and forced the ball in from close range, sending the teams into halftime tied 2-2 after four goals in 11 minutes.

A calmer second half, then a fortunate winner

The second half settled into a more controlled pattern, with Barcelona holding about two-thirds of possession and Madrid relying on transitions. Courtois and Barcelona goalkeeper Joan García each made important saves as chances fell at both ends.

Raphinha’s winner came with 17 minutes to play. Receiving the ball near the edge of the area, he lost his footing as he shot, and the ball deflected off defender Raúl Asencio, wrong-footing Courtois and looping under the crossbar. Even Barcelona’s match report acknowledged “an element of fortune” in the goal, but it was enough.

Madrid introduced Kylian Mbappé around the 76th minute. The France forward, who joined the club last summer after a long transfer pursuit and had been recovering from a knee issue, could not find an equalizer. In stoppage time, Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong was sent off for a tackle on Mbappé that the Catalan club later said “looked a lot worse than it really was.”

With Barcelona down to 10 men, García preserved the lead with a pair of late saves, including a reflex stop from a close-range header by Asencio. The final whistle confirmed Barcelona as Supercopa winners for the second consecutive year in Saudi Arabia, after a 5-2 win over Madrid in the 2025 final.

For Flick, who took over in 2024 after previous spells with Bayern Munich and Germany’s national team, it was another unbeaten final. Barcelona-based outlets noted that he has now won eight finals from eight in his club and international coaching career.

Madrid’s response: Alonso out, Arbeloa in

Real Madrid’s immediate priority was off the pitch. On Monday the club said in a statement that, “by mutual agreement between the club and Xabi Alonso, it has been decided to put an end to his time as first team coach,” adding that “Real Madrid will always be his home.”

Alonso, a former Madrid, Liverpool and Bayern Munich midfielder, arrived in June 2025 after leading Bayer Leverkusen to the Bundesliga title. Madrid won 10 of their first 11 league matches under him but stuttered late in the year, with defeats in domestic and European competition and reports of tension with senior players.

Arbeloa, 42, was presented as the new coach on Tuesday. A two-time Champions League winner with Madrid as a player and most recently coach of the club’s Castilla side, he emphasized his long connection with the club and the size of the task.

“Of course, I am aware of the responsibility and the task ahead of me, and I am very excited,” he told reporters at his unveiling. “I’ve been in this house for 20 years, and I’ll stay as long as they want me to.”

Arbeloa said he had found “a group of players who are really eager. They share my enthusiasm to fight for everything and to win,” and stressed that “the important thing is that the players are happy, enjoy themselves on the pitch, and honor the badge.”

He takes over with Madrid trailing Barcelona by four points in La Liga, well placed to advance from the Champions League league phase and facing a Copa del Rey last-16 tie at Albacete.

Saudi hosting and renewed human-rights scrutiny

While the coaching change dominated Spanish headlines, the setting of Sunday’s final again drew attention from human rights organizations.

The Spanish Super Cup has been played in Saudi Arabia since 2020 under a multi-year agreement between the Spanish federation and Sela, a Saudi state-linked company. The deal is worth about 40 million euros per edition to the federation, according to financial reports, and turned the traditional two-team season curtain-raiser into a four-club mini-tournament.

Amnesty International and other groups have criticized Saudi Arabia’s investment in major sports events—including Formula One, boxing and an expected 2034 men’s World Cup—as an attempt to “sportswash” a record of mass executions, repression of dissent, discrimination against women and LGBTQ+ people, and abuses of migrant workers.

In a series of statements on Saudi-hosted tournaments, Amnesty has described evaluations that play down those issues as an “astonishing whitewash” and said that staging marquee events in the kingdom without enforceable human rights guarantees makes organizers “complicit in blatant sportswashing.”

The Supercopa has faced specific scrutiny. In 2025, families of RCD Mallorca players reported harassment and nonconsensual filming by some spectators in Jeddah during a semifinal. The then president of the Spanish federation apologized for the incidents but said the tournament had been a “success” and indicated a desire to continue in Saudi Arabia.

Plans to extend similar arrangements to women’s competitions have also met resistance. Prominent Barcelona women’s players, including two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, publicly opposed proposals to take the women’s Supercopa to Saudi Arabia last year, arguing that commercial interests were being put ahead of women’s rights and player safety.

For Barcelona and Real Madrid, the Saudi deal delivers lucrative appearance fees and access to fans in a growing market, even as it poses questions about club identity. Barcelona have long presented themselves as més que un club—more than a club—rooted in Catalan culture and social causes, while Madrid describe themselves as the world’s most successful club and a symbol of sporting excellence.

On Sunday night, those brands were again on display thousands of kilometers from Spain, as Raphinha lifted the MVP trophy under Saudi floodlights and his teammates celebrated another cup. Back home, Arbeloa began work at Madrid’s training ground and Flick prepared for another league match.

The next chapter of their rivalry will be written in Spain. The question hanging over the Spanish Super Cup—and over many of football’s biggest games—is where the chapters after that will be played, and on whose terms.