Real Madrid wants to start the new season the same way it ended the last one — winning a trophy.
Madrid won the Champions League in its final match last
season, and on Wednesday it begins the new season by taking on Europa League
winner Eintracht Frankfurt in the UEFA Super Cup in Helsinki, Finland.
It will be the teams’ first competitive meeting since the
1960 European Cup final, when Madrid won its fifth straight European title at
the time with a thrilling 7-3 win at Glasgow’s Hampden Park. Ferenc Puskás scored
four goals for Madrid and Alfredo Di Stéfano got a hat trick. Around 127,000
fans watched the match in what is still the highest attendance for a European
Cup final.
Madrid is chasing its fifth Super Cup title, and first since
2017, while Frankfurt will be making its first Super Cup appearance following
its shootout victory over Rangers in the Europa League final. That win ended
the German club’s 42-year wait for a European trophy.
Madrid ended last season on a high after comfortably winning
the Spanish league and overcoming poor performances to advance in the knockout
stages of the Champions League. It eventually clinched a record 14th European
title in the final against Liverpool.
The Spanish powerhouse will be mostly unchanged going into
2022-23, led by Karim Benzema following his best season ever. VinÃcius Júnior
and Rodrygo are also back in an attack that was dominant last season, and the
midfield remains anchored by Casemiro, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos. The team’s
additions come with central defender Antonio Rüdiger and midfielder Aurélien
Tchouaméni.
Isco Alarcón and Gareth Bale left after their contracts
expired, but the club did not replace them despite the disappointment of
failing to sign Kylian Mbappé from Paris Saint-Germain. Instead Madrid is
hoping for another impressive season up front from the 34-year-old Benzema.
The France striker was the top scorer in the Spanish league
and the Champions League. He scored 44 goals in 45 matches with Madrid, and
equaled Raúl González as the club’s second-highest scorer with 323 goals,
behind Cristiano Ronaldo (451).
Benzema scored twice in his two preseason games — a 2-2 draw
with Mexican club América and a 2-0 win over Juventus — and did not play in
Madrid’s 1-0 loss to Barcelona.
Madrid will play its Spanish league opener on Sunday at
promoted AlmerÃa.
Frankfurt’s season has already started. It routed
second-division club Magdeburg 4-0 in the first round of the German Cup, then
lost 6-1 at home to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga opener on Friday, when the
visitors led 5-0 at halftime.
“On Wednesday we have the opportunity to do better against
an opponent that’s just as strong,” Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner said.
“Sometimes it’s good to get a slap in the face so not everyone thinks things
will continue like last season.”
Frankfurt had not clinched a European title until winning
the UEFA Cup in 1980. It won its lone German league title in 1959, and since
then it has won five German Cups, the last in 2018.
The match at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium will be the first
UEFA club competition final to be held in Finland, though the venue previously
also staged the final of the women’s European Championship in 2009.
Semi-automated offside technology will be used for the first
time in a European club competition. The new system operates with cameras that
can track 29 different body points per player and will allow video review teams
to determine offside situations more quickly and accurately, according to UEFA.
The system was tested at the women’s Euro 2022 in England
and in the Champions League last season. It was also approved by FIFA for the
World Cup in Qatar,
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