FC Barcelona and Real Madrid meet for the second time this season (8pm CET, 10pm local), this time in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah and with a trophy waiting for the winners.

For the fourth year in a row, the Spanish Super Cup is doubling as the most famous club fixture in world football, El Clásico. Barça are looking to extend what is already a record haul of 15 trophies in this competition, and also to end a couple of recent 'curses'. It's a decade and a half since any team managed to retain the trophy, and it's been eight years since the Liga champions went on to win the following season's Super Cup.

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Barça may have won all four games against Real Madrid in 2024-25, but they will need a better performance than the one against Real Madrid earlier this season. Los Blancos were 2-1 victors at the Santiago Bernabeu, and won the game fair and square. It hurts to admit, but they were simply the better side that day.

Contrasting form

However, a lot has changed since then. Although those three points sent Real Madrid into a commanding lead in La Liga, they have faltered somewhat since then. They could only draw with Rayo Vallecano, Elche and Girona and then tumbled to 2-0 defeat at home to Celta. In the meantime, Barça have been in rampant form, winning an impressive nine games in a row, every one of them by at least a two-goal margin.

The side with a commanding lead are now Barça. And the ideal way to capitalise on such a sweet moment would be by collecting what would be the first, but hopefully not the last, trophy of the 2025-26 campaign.

Very different semis

Barça made light work of qualifying for the final. Athletic Club barely put up a fight as the utterly dominant Catalans won 5-0, the biggest winning margin in Spanish Super Cup history. Raphinha capped a brilliant performance with two goals after Fermin Lopez, Ferran Torres and Roony Bardghji had scored earlier. After four goals arrived in the first 38 minutes, the last hour of the game was little more than a formality, meaning the team could takes things a lot easier than expected on Wednesday night.

Real Madrid, in contrast, have had one day fewer to rest, and had to get through a much tighter contest against their city rivals Atlético. Although Federico Valverde put them ahead after just two minutes and Rodrygo would add a second early in the second half Atlético refused to give up, pulling one goal back and pushing hard for a second that never came.

This is the seventh edition of the Super Cup since the switch to a four-team format in 2020, all of which have been played in Saudi Arabia apart from the pandemic-hit year of 2021. The last three were also contested by these two teams, with Barça emerging victorious in 2024 and 2026, and Madrid winning the one in between.

Those three games have produced a total of 16 goals. If the drama of recent meetings is anything to go by, the 62,000 fans inside King Abdullah Sports City, nicknamed the 'shining jewel', are in for a dazzling treat.

Team news

Gavi, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Andreas Christensen remain unavailable, but Hansi Flick could still afford the luxury of starting the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Dani Olmo, Marcus Rashford and Lamine Yamal on the bench for the semi-final. December's Liga MVP has been troubled by a minor issue but it wasn't enough to prevent him from coming on in the second half against Athletic and there is no reason why he can't start on Sunday.

The big story in the rival camp concerns Kylian Mbappe, who seems to have overcome the knee injury that kept him out of the game with Atlético and may even start the final. Dean Huijsen is back to full fitness, but didn't feature in that game either, but will probably be needed after three Madrid players (Rodrygo, Antonio Rudiger and Raul Asencio) all took knocks in Thursday's contest and may or may not be in condition to play. 

Real Madrid manager Xavi Alonso has plenty to think about, with his squad already missing the injured Trent Alexander-Arnold and Eder Militao, as well as Brahim Diaz, who is away representing Morocco at the African Cup of Nations.

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