Cristiano Ronaldo showed off his gorgeous summer tan then got a red card to match his new skin tone. Gerard Piqué showed off some center forward's skills then scored for the wrong team. In a wild first leg of an El Clasico verison of the Spanish Super Copa, Real Madrid exploited Pique's defensive abilities for a 3-1 victory at the Camp Nou. But Los Blancos will have to play the second leg (and perhaps longer) without Ronaldo, who shoved the referee after being shown a second yellow card.
Ronaldo didn't enter the match until the 58th minute but, aside from the awful play of Piqué, will garner all the headlines. After having a goal called back for offside 13 minutes after coming on, he scored this golazo on the counter. Piqué didn't come close to Ronaldo playing defense.
Pique, bow to the King. pic.twitter.com/Aeb5xJLHCd
— Banky (@AdeBanqie) August 13, 2017
Ronaldo was booked for taking off his shirt to display his glorious abs, which proved costly two minutes later when he was given a second yellow for diving. It was a close call, but Ronaldo made it worse by shoving the referee after being sent off.
Once Ronaldo left the pitch, it was back to abusing Piqué. This time Marco Asensio took advantage to score this beauty. Maybe close down on your man, Piqué?
That made it 3-1 in the 90th minute, a third away goal for Madrid, which won the last El Clasico Super Copa in 2012 on away goals. Barcelona has a lot of work to do if it wants to catch Madrid in the return leg. First, they have to figure out what to do with Piqué.
The match didn't start well for Piqué, who was booked for trying to use his hands to score off a corner. His worst offense was an own goal in the 50th minute to open the scoring. Oops.
Later, Karim Benzema, who started in place of Ronaldo, made Piqué look silly before sending in a dangerous cross. Full credit to Jordi Alba for making an incredible goal-line clearance.
Piqué wasn't the only Barcelona player to have an off day. Aside from an incredible block by Jordi Alba and a penalty scored by Lionel Messi (off a dubious call when Keylor Navas touched Luis Suarez in the box), Barcelona players struggled. Sergio Busquets had a golden opportunity to score from about eight yards out only to sky his effort over the bar.
Sergio Busquets : pic.twitter.com/NtNUsS0d1z
— Talal (@Tmhndi) August 13, 2017
Madrid, meanwhile, despite not creating too many clear-cut chances in the first half, dominated in the second. There's still a second leg to be played, but tonight Madrid fans will be dancing around like Isco schooling the Barcelona midfield.
wtf isco pic.twitter.com/tguRfd6EWl
— barkolive (@barkolive2017) August 13, 2017
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