COLUMN: Introducing the ‘ClasiCopa’ – a solution to the Supercup

Jeremy Beren can be found on social media here, and if you’re hungry for more, find their excellent work here.

The efforts to make the Supercopa de Espana more “inclusive” and “better for the entirety of Spanish football” by including the runners-up in LaLiga and the Copa del Rey… resulted in Real Madrid and Barcelona contesting the season’s first trophy in Saudi Arabia once more. 

The expanded Supercopa, first played in 2020, got off to a bumpy start for the organizers when the Clasico sides were unable to meet in the final until 2023. In the first three seasons of the competition that was reorganised under Luis Rubiales’ watch, the only time Barcelona and Real Madrid played one another was in the semifinals was the 2022 edition.

But this major oversight has been swiftly corrected. For the fourth successive season, Madrid and Barca met in the final at Alinma Bank Stadium in Jeddah, where the Blaugrana won the season’s second Clasico and their 16th Supercopa title. 

As Marca’s Sunday morning portada pointed out, the Super Cup winner since 2020 always has gone on to win the league (it doesn’t include Athletic’s 2021 win, as that edition was held in Spain). This is a helpful window into the Supercopa’s sole value now, since Athletic are the only non-Clasico side to win the trophy in the past 11 years. It is simply a measuring stick for Barca and Madrid, whose stakes are the only stakes worth knowing.

(By the way, zoom out further and you’ll see that one Clasico side or the other has won LaLiga 35 times in the past 41 years. This season will doubtless make it 36 out of 42.)

The Supercopa has existed in various forms since 1940. It morphed into the Copa Eva Duarte between 1947 and 1953 before it went on hiatus until 1982. That year, reigning league champions Real Sociedad defeated Copa del Rey winners Madrid 4-1 over a two-legged tie. Athletic won it automatically in 1984 after conquering a league-cup double; between 1995 and 2004, Deportivo La Coruna won it three times, a period that also included wins for Mallorca, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Now though, the Supercopa is no more than a chiste mala, a bad joke, practically a title that is ‘off-limits’ to the non-Clasico teams as Barca and Real Madrid have consolidated their power in the era of Javier Tebas’ financial controls.

Like, do you not see how offensive this is? Tell me that this wasn’t predestined or predetermined.

SuperFinal.
SuperClásico.
SuperDomingo.#superSupercopa pic.twitter.com/tthHAFk4Uy

— RFEF (@rfef) January 10, 2026

With this in mind, I have a radical proposal for RFEF and its president Rafael Louzan: the Supercopa de Espana should morph again.

It’s time to do away with that pesky illusion of “fairness” and “equal competition” they have propagated since expanding the Supercopa. It is an insult to Atletico Madrid and Athletic Club, two historic institutions, to receive under €3 million combined when Real Madrid alone will take home more than twice that amount. Athletic never had a chance in their 5-0 semi-final loss to Barca; Atletico played well, in a losing game state, against Real Madrid, but Los Blancos scored the opening goal from a dubiously-awarded free kick that set them on their way within 76 seconds.

No, instead, this is what I think should happen, to save everyone else, fans from all the other sides in LaLiga, the time and aggravation and travel expenses (if they apply): Just have Real Madrid and Barcelona contest the Supercup each season. All the frills they can handle, no expenses spared – and certainly no other teams invited.

Barcelona’s dominance in Supercopa finals continues as they win three of the last four against Real Madrid 🔵🔴🔥 pic.twitter.com/4SRSHmLMXy

— OneFootball (@OneFootball) January 11, 2026

Hold it in Qatar next January, and for every January in perpetuity. Maybe a rebrand is in order, one that really captures the exhibitional nature of this fixture, held a mere six-hour flight from Madrid. We’ll call it the ClasiCopa.

Sunday’s final, a 3-2 thriller, can be considered the first edition. It featured three goals scored in first half stoppage time. It featured a game-winning brace from Raphinha. The intensity was palpable: 28 combined shot attempts, six yellow cards, a controversial late red to Frenkie de Jong, a dramatic second-half appearance from the bench for Kylian Mbappe, and a last-minute save off the line from Joan Garcia to preserve the trophy.

Who’s going to complain if that happens every year? No one has yet, and the Clasico sides certainly won’t! One of them gets €8 million for winning this “tournament”; both will take home at least €6m! The money is pocket change for them, but – for the sake of an example or three – it would change Getafe, Sevilla or Valencia institutionally. 

See, there are two leagues within La Liga: one of survival for most, and one of opulence for precious few. Give me a reason that the Federation shouldn’t nakedly embrace the regressive, deeply-ingrained feeling they have that the two Clasico clubs are the most powerful, the most intelligent, the most superior – beyond being the biggest money-makers in a league where half the teams are within five points of relegation, and where it is becoming more likely that they will lose a fifth Champions League place in 2026/27!

Louzan and company surely loved the manufactured drama behind Mbappe’s availability for the final and his farcical “will he or won’t he” weekend flight to Saudi Arabia. Why not lean even harder into the spectacle for spectacle’s sake, and the associated faux-pageantry they so disingenuously have dressed up as a ‘just’ four-team tournament?

After all, this is the climate that Spanish football has created, over many years of branding itself as ‘the league of Barcelona and Real Madrid.’ The people responsible might as well openly revel in it without fear of reprisal – and without disparaging the rest of us by painting the Supercopa as something it is not.