Some of the major European Soccer competitions may not have started just yet but we too had an amazing UEFA Super Cup pre-season match from Warsaw in Poland between the last season’s champions – 23/24 Champions League winners Real Madrid and the 23/24 Europa League winners Atalanta BC.
Prior to this match, Madrid got away with the 2nd half stunner v Borussia Dortmund for the Champions League triumph 2-0 while Atalanta ended Bayer Leverkusen’s long unbeaten run of 51 games to hoist the Europa Cup trophy 3-0.
It was a quiet first half to begin with but again, Madrid, likewise with their 23/24 Champions League Final performance, was just too good where they’ve bagged a few tricks here and there to secure yet another UEFA trophy towards the end 2-0.
For Atalanta, you can imagine what their attack would look like if they still had their main striker Giancula Scamacca, who is currently out for half if not most of the season due to an ACL knee injury. Sure, they’ve won some ball along the way but lack the finishing touches up front where Atalanta only scored two shots on target compared to Real Madrid’s six.
They got a huge new campaign ahead including the Champions League as it remains to be seen if Atalanta can keep on going without Scamacca across all competitions.
Meanwhile, it’s great to see Real Madrid win another major European trophy ahead of another busy campaign with the Super Cup. It’s never been a better time with superstar signing Kylian Mbappe now onboard after a few years in the Paris St Germain shirt. Brazil’s Carlos Vinicius Jr. has been excellent as always with his feeds, pace and trickery off the left flank that led to two amazing goals including Mbappe’s debut goal for the team’s 2nd strike.
Gotta say Mbappe has achieved everything in France with so many goals under his belt but his European ambitions when it comes to winning silverware is yet to come & that Super Cup win is his first step towards a long way at the Bernabeu.
The new look UEFA Club competition season under the expanded “Swiss model” format across the Champions League, Europa League & the Conference League will begin mid-next month.