Barcelona and Athletic kick off the Spanish Supercopa in Saudi Arabia | OneFootball

Hansi Flick's team will seek to reach the final and defend the title, while the Basque team will try to make an impact and break their losing streak in the first semifinal of the tournament.

Barcelona and Athletic Club will face each other this Wednesday from 16:00 at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Saudi Arabia, for the first semifinal of the Spanish Super Cup. The Catalan team arrives as the favorite and with the hope of becoming two-time champions, while the Lions will try to cause an upset to reach the tournament's final.

The winner of this match will face the victor of the duel between Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid, who will play the second semifinal. Thus, the Super Cup returns to an international stage and promises high-level clashes on Asian soil.

How Barcelona and Athletic arrive

The team led by Hansi Flick comes from defeating Espanyol 2-0 in the Barcelona derby and has accumulated eight consecutive victories that have taken them to the top of LaLiga. With a great collective present and figures like Lamine Yamal, Robert Lewandowski, and Raphinha in top form, the Catalans are confident in securing their first title of the year and repeating what they did in 2025, when they were crowned champions of this competition after thrashing Real Madrid.

Meanwhile, Athletic is going through an irregular moment: they have gone a month without winning in the local tournament and have fallen to the eighth position. Additionally, their campaign in the Champions League was not good either, with only one victory and a complicated outlook for qualification. In this context, captain Iñaki Williams was critical of the venue and expressed without filters: “Playing in Arabia is a sh***.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.