Real Madrid, Barcelona locked at 2-2 in Supercup

Real Madrid and Barcelona drew 2-2 in the first leg of the Spanish Supercup late Sunday in front of 80,000 fans in Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu as the two bitter rivals kicked off the new season.

Mesut Ozil gave Real a 13th-minute lead before David Villa and Lionel Messi put Barcelona ahead at the break. But Real hit back when Xabi Alonso levelled the tie nine minutes into the second half.

Barca boss Josep Guardiola, still unbeaten as manager in the Santiago Bernabeu, remained cautious over tomorrow’s second leg.

“We hope that with our crowd we will have an advantage,” he said.

“I’m satisfied with our efforts but they were dangerous. We have had a limited time together with some players only back training a matter of days.”

Real’s Iker Casillas was pleased with his team’s performance.

“We’ve played well, passed the ball around and we’re happy, little by little we’re getting there, we’ll go to Barcelona to try and win the trophy,” he said.

In the build-up, Guardiola described the game as “a final against our strongest rival”.

That made his starting 11 all the more surprising with Gerard Pique, Xavi Hernandez, Sergi Busquets and Pedro all on the bench, the first three carrying slight injuries and the latter replaced by new signing Alexis Sanchez.

No summer signing started for Real who fielded the same 11 that lost 5-0 to Barca in La Liga last season but Jose Maria Callejon and Fabio Coentrao appeared in the second half to make their debuts.