Competition/Round: 2025 Copa del Rey Final
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Alejandro Balde, Robert Lewandowski, Marc Casadó, Marc Bernal (out)
Real Madrid Outs & Doubts: Dani Carvajal, Éder Militão, Eduardo Camavinga (out), David Alaba, Ferland Mendy (doubt)
Date/Time: Saturday, April 26, 2025, 10pm CET (Barcelona), 9pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 4pm ET, 1pm PT (USA), 1.30am IST (India, Sunday)
Venue: Estadio La Cartuja, Seville, Spain
Referee: Ricardo de Burgos Bengoechea
VAR: Pablo González Fuertes
How to watch on TV: ESPN Deportes (USA), Premier Sports 1 (UK), Startimes World Football (Nigeria), TVE La 1, TV3, Movistar (Spain), others
How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), Premier Sports Player (UK), FanCode (India), Movistar+ (Spain), others
Following a crucial home win over Mallorca to remain in control of the La Liga title race in midweek, Barcelona travel to Seville for a monster game as the Catalans face Real Madrid in the 2025 Copa del Rey Final at the newly renovated Estadio La Cartuja on Saturday night.
As of now the game is still on, despite some boycott fears due to Real Madrid’s public outrage over the Spanish Federation’s decision to appoint Ricardo de Burgos Bengoechea as the match referee for the Final. Real Madrid TV published a video accusing the referee of bias against the club, who then requested the Federation to replace him with someone else and said in a statement that the referees are united against Real Madrid in Saturday’s Final.
The less that’s said about all that the better, so we’ll just move on and talk about the actual football match.
Barça come into this one looking to take the first step towards a historic third men’s Treble in club history by winning the Spanish Cup for the 32nd time, and this is the eighth time in history that the Copa del Rey will be decided by El Clásico. Real Madrid have won four of the first seven meetings, including the last two in 2011 and 2014, and Barça haven’t beaten their biggest rivals in the Cup title game since 1990.
It’s about time they end that drought, and anyone who has followed these two teams this season will point to the Blaugrana as the natural favorites: apart from a terrible six-week stretch in November and December, Barça have undoubtedly been the best team in Europe all season long, with a style of play that has combined entertainment with high-level winning for the first time in a decade.
Real Madrid on the other hand have been brutally underwhelming considering the massive expectations created by the arrival of Kylian Mbappé in the summer, with Carlo Ancelotti getting much of the blame for a vast collection of incredible individual talent being unable to function as a team.
That was especially on show in the first two Clásicos of the season, when Hansi Flick had a perfect gameplan to attack Madrid’s weaknesses on both ends and saw his team destroy Los Blancos at the Santiago Bernabéu and in the Spanish Super Cup by a combined score of 9-2 that could have easily been more if not for Wojciech Szczesny’s dumb red card in the second half of the match in Saudi Arabia.
Madrid haven’t improved at all since that last meeting in January, and Barça have lost just once in all of 2025. The Blaugrana are simply better at all the things that matter, and have had the clear coaching edge since Flick took charge. Barça will be expected to win on Saturday, and only a masterpiece performance by two or three Madrid’s brilliant individuals can possibly spoil the Catalan party in Seville.
But here’s the thing: Madrid do have the brilliant individuals capable of a masterpiece, especially on a night where they’ll be absolutely desperate to not be embarrassed by Barça again and to save their season. There is another Clásico coming in two weeks that will decide La Liga and they might have some hope of pulling off a miracle then, but this is their best realistic chance of robbing Barça of a trophy.
Flick and his troops cannot take this one for granted, and they know it. The coach needs to put together another great plan, and the players need to execute it at the highest level. They have to expect the strongest version of Madrid they’ve seen so far, with a level of urgency and intensity that they may not have shown yet but is definitely in there. The players are too good, the coach is too experienced, and this night is too important for them.
It’s El Clásico. For the Cup. And we must win it. And they do too.
Let’s dance.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Szczesny; Kounde, Cubarsí, Iñigo, Martín; De Jong, Pedri; Yamal, Olmo, Raphinha; Ferran
Real Madrid (4-3-3): Courtois; Valverde, Asencio, Rüdiger, García; Modric, Tchouameni, Bellingham; Rodrygo, Mbappé, Vinicius
PREDICTION
Regardless of their bad results as of late, I have too much respect for Ancelotti and Madrid’s forward talent to expect this to be another cakewalk, especially given their desperation and urgency coming into this one. But I’m still trusting Flick to come up with another great plan and for Barça’s best players to deliver on the biggest stage and claim the Cup: 3-1 to the good guys.
