Ahead of their Supercopa semifinal tie against Atletico Madrid, FC Barcelona’s preparation was hit with an unfortunate incident on Wednesday when their team bus got lost in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
Head coach Ernesto Valverde and Sergio Busquets were due to attend a press conference at the Al-Ittihad Sports City, the venue where the Catalan team were due to hold their training session.
Instead, the driver of Barcelona’s team bus took them to the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, where the semifinal Supercopa semifinal will be played on Thursday, 40 miles away from Al-Ittihad complex. The team bus then got lost in the city’s traffic and the press conference had to be delayed.
“We certainly know the city a bit better now. There was a little mistake. We went to the stadium where Real Madrid and Valencia play tonight. He realised before we arrived but then there was some traffic, so we were late,” Valverde was quoted as saying by Goal.com.
In the first semifinal between Real Madrid and Valencia on Wednesday, the former won 3-1 riding on goals from Toni Kroos, Isco and Luka Modric. As injury forced wingers Eden Hazard, Gareth Bale and striker Karim Benzema to be out of the game, Zidane opted for a midfielder-heavy line-up featuring Casemiro, Federico Valverde, Modric, Kroos and Isco.
In the 15th minute, Kroos draw the first blood of the game. The German midfielder spotted Valencia goalie Jaume Domenech out of position and fired a curling corner kick that the scrambling net minder was unable to keep from going over the line.
Inside the area, Ezequiel Garay managed to block a shot by Modric, but Isco gathered the rebound and slotted the ball just inside the post past Jaume in the 39th minute to double the lead.
Zidane’s men continued to dominate in the second half and eventually made the score 3-0 in the 66th minute when Modric fired a shot with the outside of his cleat that entered the goal inside the far post past a diving Jaume.