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Another titanic tussle awaits in the Copa del Rey final as FC Barcelona face off against eternal rivals Real Madrid. Join us for live scores and commentary from 5:30am AEST.
Barcelona’s fall from grace appears complete after a horrendous past few weeks for the Catalan giants. It began with a 2-1 aggregate defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, which was quickly followed by a poor defeat to Granada in La Liga.
With their Champions League and La Liga hopes dashed, Barcelona’s only hope of silverware this season comes in the form of the Copa del Rey. Securing the title will prove an almighty task for Barcelona given that they face a Real Madrid outfit still in the running for a famed treble.
Real do have a Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich coming up, so it will be interesting to see if Carlo Ancelotti plays his full strength line-up today.
Cristiano Ronaldo remains under an injury cloud and will likely sit out today’s final as he battles to be fit for the clash against Bayern Munich next week.
Even if Ronaldo is in the stands tonight, Madrid still possess enough weaponry to open up a vulnerable Barcelona defence. Gareth Bale, Angel Di Maria and Karim Benzema are all in good form and will fancy their chances of hurting Barcelona on the break tonight.
Benzema and Di Maria in particular caused havoc against Barcelona in the most recent El Clasico at the Bernabeu, and should be favoured to do so again against a Barcelona defence missing Victor Valdes, Carlos Puyol and Gerard Pique.
Barcelona are currently short on confidence. They have really struggled to create goal-scoring chances despite dominating possession and at times appear bereft of ideas.
If Real can just remain patient, the likes of Bale, Di Maria and Benzema should do enough on the counterattack to secure the win.
Real to win 2-1