The history of the classic in the Copa del Rey augurs an even semifinal between the two greats of Spanish football. In the KO tournament both have met so far in fourteen rounds, of which the blaugrana have taken eight to the whites six. The balance in the finals is favorable to Madrid, who won four to three from Barcelona.
The last time the two teams met in the Cup was in 2019, a semifinal that took Barcelona to the final. In the first leg at the Camp Nou there was a draw (1-1), but the Catalans won at the Bernabeu (0-3), which meant days later the dismissal of Santi Solari from the white bench and the return in his second stage of Zinedine Zidane.
The last two finals between the two were for Madrid, both at Mestalla. A 1-0 with a goal from Cristiano in extra time in 2011 with Mourinho coaching Madrid and a 2-1, in 2014, already with Ancelotti, in the game of Bale’s career, beating Marc Bartra on the outside of the field .
In the chapter on classic cup bearers in the memories of the fans there is a bit of everything, from the so-called “final of the bottles” at the Bernabeu won by Barcelona (1-0) in 1968 with an arbitration by Rigo protested by the whites or in 1970 the penalty awarded at the Camp Nou by Guruceta to Madrid from Rifé to Velázquez very clearly far from the area that became one of the biggest scandals in the history of Spanish football.
Also in the memory of the finals is the 4-0 win for the Whites at the Calderón in 1974 in a competition without foreigners when Barça with Cruyff had won 0-5 in the League at the Bernabeu. Or the 1983 final in Zaragoza (2-1) with a goal by Marcos Alonso at the last minute and Schuster’s subsequent cuts to Real Madrid, the team he would end up playing for years later.
Another remembered final is that of 1990, when Barcelona won 2-0 at the Mestalla, Cruyff’s first title on the bench, and Chendo, who has been a delegate for the white team for many years, said as soon as he lost: “Some have won that They are not spanish”.
The first reactions to the draw were those of Jordi Cruyff, Barcelona’s technical secretary: “It’s a great match worldwide. In the end, to win the Cup you have to win everything, but a special tie is coming up. The players have already forgotten what they It happened in the Super Cup. They are a historic rival. We started from scratch. It will be a beautiful battle”.
Before finding out about the pairing with Barcelona, ??Dani Carvajal, one of Madrid’s captains, spoke: “The comebacks against Villarreal and Atlético have made us return to our essence. We haven’t won the Cup for a long time, which was my first title as a Real Madrid player, also with Ancelotti (2014). Any rival will demand the maximum from us with different nuances. At this point there are practically no favourites”.
