Barcelona, Aug 18: In another riveting contest between Barcelona and Real Madrid in the Spanish Supercopa finals on Aug 17, the Catalans beat their arch rivals 3-2 to secure a 5-4 aggregate victory. And once again, it was Lionel Messi who starred in his team's win.

And like most other clashes between the two teams, a trouble erupted when debutant Cesc Fabregas was hacked down by Marcelo and Mesut Ozil of Real Madrid. Ozil and Barcelona's David Villa were all dismissed.

In the 15th minute of the match, Messi set up Andres Iniesta for the first goal which was soon equalised by Cristiano Ronaldo. But the diminutive Argentine raced through to grab the second goal just before the break.

After some intense tussle, with only nine minutes of the play remaining, Karim Benzema equalised again. But Real's hope of drawing the match was once again dashed by the irrepressible Lionel Messi who scampered through to another goal that left crowd in raptures.

An ecstatic Guardiola, the coach of Barcelona, was quoted as saying, "The players have made a super-human effort because we were missing some and those we had were far from their best form."

And added, "Messi isn't at his best level ...we have to congratulate the players for their efforts and character."

Jose, Mourinhio, the Real Madrid coach was understandably upset at the result of the match which meant that he has now failed to win in eight visits to the Nou Camp. He said, "If we said we were happy when we hadn't won a title we would be hypocrites. It's a small title, but we aren't happy we didn't win it. What we are happy with is the evolution of the team. We did very well in both games. We were fantastic."

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