On This Day Five Years Ago: Marco Asensio Scores Banger vs Barcelona

On August 16 2017, Real Madrid played Barcelona in the second leg of the Super Cupp and cranked out an incredible performance. In the first leg, Marco Asensio scored a banger. Cristiano Ronaldo then came off the bench to score a golazo and get a red card — it was a game that had it all and Real Madrid won 3 - 1.

In the second leg, Real continued their domination.

From the Managing Madrid archives:

There were a lot of fun wrinkles in this game, even if the second half was a bit subdued relative to the chaos of the first half, and the preceding second half of the second leg. Without Ronaldo, Isco, Bale, and Casemiro; Real Madrid steamrolled Barcelona for the first 45 minutes. Zidane implemented one of the most cohesive high-presses we’ve seen in his reign. It was so good, it took Barcelona 11 minutes to build-up their first spell of possession in Real Madrid’s half.

There were moments, to be sure, where Barcelona pinned Real Madrid deep, but the incredible ball-carrying ability of Kovacic, the movement without the ball of Kroos and Modric, the blitzing, cutting runs from Lucas Vazquez and Marco Asensio, and the distribution down the wings from Marcelo enabled Zidane’s men to escape tight situations as if they were playing in slow motion.

Somewhere between Asensio’s outrageous long-range bomb and Karim Benzema’s pouncing finish to make it 2-0, Real Madrid were flicking the ball around with a dose of superfluousness fun — solely because they could. Let’s put it this way: If this was a game of FIFA, and you were playing as Barcelona, you would have rage-quit long before the second half started.

Real Madrid won this tie convincingly, 5-1 on aggregate, and they did it by going into several different gears when the ocassion required them to. This team, at this point, is insultingly good and deep. We still have yet to see Vallejo and Llorente; while only taking in minuscule doses of Ceballos and Theo. Oh, and, Ronaldo played just 25 minutes over the course of two legs.

Here are highlights from that match:

Where were you when this happened?