“Personally, it’s not that I particularly like coming across Atlético Madrid,” Carlo Ancelotti said, but he has got used to it – even if he wouldn’t normally need to travel so far. The last time Real Madrid met their city rivals, they were defeated at the Metropolitano, a 10-minute drive from Valdebebas where they work daily. When they meet in just eight days, it will be there too. But on Wednesday they will meet 4,963km away in Riyadh– the first of three matches, in three competitions, in three weeks.
Like Turkey, Spain’s Super Cup is being played in Saudi Arabia. There won’t be many Spanish fans there but, unlike Turkey’s, it will go ahead. On Thursday night, Barcelona face Osasuna in the second semi-final but the four-team competition, among the first of the catalogue of sporting events sold to the state, when the former Federation president Luis Rubiales and then Barcelona player Gerard Piqué took it there in 2019, opens with a Madrid derby on Wednesday. That will be followed the week after by the Copa del Rey last 16, back in Madrid, and then the league meeting at the Santiago Bernabéu on 4 February.
By then Ancelotti will have faced Diego Simeone, neighbours in La Finca on the western edge of Madrid, as many times as any other coach in his 32-year career: that league fixture will be the 24th game they have come across each other from their technical areas. They have also encountered each other twice as players, and on the evening before this Super Cup semi-final the Italian recalled a meeting in April 2000 when Simeone, then a midfielder at Lazio, scored the only goal in a victory against Juventus, who he was managing.
“We have spoken lots of times, we know each other because we have played each other a lot. We live close by, and sometimes we see each other. Always with a lot of respect,” Ancelotti said. “I feel good in this ‘white’ atmosphere [at Madrid] and, as an observer, I think Simeone feels good in the Atlético atmosphere. He has the ideal profile for them: if not, you don’t last all that time at one club.” Much the same could be said of him: with Brazil determined to see him take them into a World Cup, Ancelotti recently signed a new contract at the Santiago Bernabéu. That he did so mid-season is almost unheard of.
In their managerial meetings so far, they have won eight each. This is not their biggest game: they led their sides to the first European Cup final between clubs from the same city, for a start. And as this run of three derbies in as many weeks begins, an inevitable debate has been raised: which matters most?
Super Cup, Copa del Rey, then league: on the face of it each is a little bigger than the last, each new meeting built upon the previous one. Yet while Atlético defeated Real in the first meeting this season, that has proven the catalyst for change, which helps to alter things. “That game did us a lot of damage, [but] it seems we have fixed that and I think tomorrow we can be a better version [of ourselves],” Ancelotti said. Madrid have since restructured the midfield, moved Jude Bellingham to the left, found greater defensive security and are undefeated.
Atlético meanwhile are different, too: they have scored more goals but the defensive solidity that used to define them has been absent, they have lost each of their past four away games and slipped 10 points behind in the league – enough to suggest that February’s meeting may be of little relevance, the title long since escaping their grasp.
Given a choice of the Copa del Rey and the Super Cup, the answer would appear obvious too but, while the move to Saudi Arabia has removed some of the soul and most of the supporters, this competition was always more than the Community Shield and the creation of a final-four format has made it feel bigger. It is a semi-final too, a short route to silverware. A cup victory, by contrast, would still leave them three games from the final. Besides, you can’t choose and as Simeone always says, to the point of parody: partido a partido, one game at a time. And the next game is a derby, which is never just a game, even so far from home.
Atlético remember the last time they met in Saudi Arabia: a late, professional foul by Fede Valverde on Álvaro Morata denied them in the 2020 final and made him immensely popular among his supporters. “I don’t know if that put me in the hearts of Madrid fans but I am not proud of it,” the Uruguayan said at the time. “I would do it again for sure,” he said before this derby. “It was very close and it was decisive, so if it was the same I would do it again – for my team, the values I grew up with. It’s not about that moment, it’s that it was my first Super Cup.
“There are people who think you have to play [this] in Spain, but we have to compete, to win, make people happy. It’s nice to compete against the best and Atlético is one of the best, not just in Spain but in Europe. The cup will be very important and the league too [but] this is another title, another derby, and it’s a lovely game to enjoy.”
As Ancelotti said: “Atlético are our rival: always have been, always will be. Personally, it’s not that I particularly like coming across Atlético Madrid because they’re one of the best but we have to play them and they will feel the same way. We’re two very strong teams, and it will be hard.”
