Barcelona win Copa del Rey after Koundé’s extra-time winner settles thriller

• Final: Barcelona 3-2 Real Madrid (aet)
• Pedri 28 Torres 84, Koundé 116; Mbappé 70, Tchouaméni

It was late, and they were tired, but with four minutes left and long after midnight in Seville Jules Koundé found the strength to send a shot flying into the net and the Barcelona fans behind the goal into raptures. The fireworks were lit and the men in blue and red sprinted towards him from all sides of this stadium: here, at last, it was. The Copa del Rey final, a first clásico final in 11 years, had a winner. They had been a goal up and a goal down, they had thought they had a last-minute penalty to win it, but now the Catalan side had done it. Real Madrid had fought and rebelled, but eventually they were defeated 3-2.

You might call it a game of two halves, but there were four of them, and they had been superb. They also had an unlikely man there at the heart of a decisive moment: Pedri, Kylian Mbappé, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Ferran Torres had all scored and now it was Koundé who did. It had also had a very, very likely man standing in the middle of what might have been the decisive moment: after all the talk about referees, after Madrid had boycotted pre-match activities and the threat that they might boycott the game itself, it was indeed the officials who took the spotlight at the decisive moment.

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