What Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético and Valencia must do to qualify for the Super Cup
The four finalists from the last edition of the Spanish Super Cup have not reached the Copa del Rey semi-finals and can now only book their place via LaLiga.
Athletic Club, Real Sociedad, Granada and Mirandés are the four clubs who will contest this year's Copa del Rey semi-finals. Two of them, will contest the final at La Cartuja and by doing so, book their ticket for next year's Spanish Super Cup which once again will be held in Saudi Arabia.
None of the teams who disputed this year's edition of the Super Cup - Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid and Valencia managed to get to the semi-finals of the Copa which means that there is only one route left to contest the Super Cup - through LaLiga.
Real Madrid and Barcelona, the favourites via LaLiga route
The new format of the Spanish Super Cup features four teams - the winners and runners-up of LaLiga and the Copa del Rey. So if Real Madrid, Barça, Atlético or Valencia want to have a chance of winning next year's tournament, they would need to either win the league or finish second. As it stands, el Real Madrid and Barcelona occupy the top two places with Getafe and Sevilla seven points adrift. Zidane's Madrid top the table on 49 points, three points ahead of Barcelona. Valencia trail the leaders by 12 points and are 9 points off second place while Atlético, are 13 points behind Madrid and 10 behind Barça.
Mathematically, Athletic, Real Sociedad or Granada still could win LaLiga (although that is very unlikely) so none of the Copa semi-finalists have a realistic chance of winning the double or lifting the Copa and finishing second in the league. If that were to happen though, the RFEF would have to stage a draw for the Super Cup, like they did for this year's tournament.