The Copa del Rey final and Gerard Piqué's display

La Cartuja will host today’s Copa del Rey final between Real Betis and Valencia. May the best team win. Whoever wins, two things are certain, both will play in the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia in January and both will receive considerably less for it than Kosmos, Gerard Piqué's company. One hundred long years of history, all the efforts to create and maintain a team to reach the Cup final are worth less than Piqué, who went to Spanish FA President Luis Rubiales with an idea and secured a bigger slice of the cake than will be offered to the two finalists tomorrow. Coincidentally, Betis and Valencia were the first victims of the invention.

Before the competition’s format was changed, the 2019 Super Cup would have been played out by Barcelona and Valencia, champions of La Liga and champions of the Copa del Rey. With the four-team format, the runner-up in La Liga, Atlético, entered the competition. The Cup runner-up was Barça, and another team was needed for the Cup. The defeated semi-finalists were Betis and Madrid. Choosing Betis seemed the right thing to do, as they lost to Valencia, the champions, but Madrid were chosen because of their better cup record, and so Saudi Arabia paid more. Betis didn’t go. Valencia, in their right to go, were treated poorly. They protested and the case is still in court.

Barça return to winning ways

On Thursday night, we saw Gerard Piqué out on the pitch again, this time at Anoeta, and we saw that, as Xavi said, being in the spotlight is good for him, it gives him fuel. He left the field limping. He went down frequently throughout, with groin pain. The Barcelona defenders around him were also picking up injuries. It was only in the 82nd minute that he agreed to go off, giving way to Lenglet. The score was 0-1, Aubameyang got the goal in the 10th minute, and that’s how it would end. Barça passed the test and move back to second place.