Barcelona’s Brazilian Rafinha deserves the title of Man of the Match in the Clasico against Real Madrid, after his amazing performance.
Barcelona won the Spanish Super Cup title after a resounding 5-2 victory over its traditional rival, Real Madrid, in the match that took place at the Jewel Stadium in Jeddah on Sunday evening.
Barcelona’s attacking trio of Raphinha, Lamine Yamal and Robert Lewandowski shone throughout the first half and at the beginning of the second half until goalkeeper Szczesny was sent off.
But the Brazilian Rafinha was the most brilliant, after showing a high winning spirit from the beginning of the match, and constantly posed danger, starting with a distinctive header in the fourth minute, which goalkeeper Courtois excelled in stopping.
He returned in the ninth minute and shot a powerful ground ball from inside the area that went just wide of the post.
Even with Mbappe injured and falling to the ground, he clearly wanted not to waste time by taking Real Madrid’s medical staff bag out of the field.
That desire had to be crowned with success, and indeed he scored Real’s third goal with a distinctive header in the 49th minute, escaping Tchouameni’s supervision.
He also scored the fifth goal from a quick start from the midfield, during which he played with Tchouameni again inside the area before shooting into the net.
He made the fourth goal in a distinctive way after he dealt intelligently with a two-man start with Valverde before passing a magical through ball to Balde to be alone with Courtois and score in the Real Madrid net.
Rafinha participated for 79 minutes before being substituted for Ferran Torres, and during those minutes he managed to score two goals and make another goal.
Rafinha shot 3 balls on Real Madrid’s goal and another ball outside the goal, and made three dribbles and succeeded in two of them, and wasted one big chance, according to “Sofa Score” numbers. He
also touched the ball 34 times, and passed the ball 18 times, including 15 successful passes with a passing accuracy of 83%.
Rafinha passed 4 key balls, and sent 6 crosses, including one accurate cross, but he sent one long ball and it was successful, and created one big chance to score.
He entered into 4 ground duels, winning two of them and did not enter into any aerial duels, and lost possession of the ball 11 balls, and did not commit any fouls or suffer any fouls.
Even after being substituted, Rafinha was present, receiving a yellow card in the 89th minute for objecting to one of the referee’s decisions, and he remained one of the most prominent stars of the match, if not the first star in fact.