Diego Simeone Spiced Up The Supercopa With A Bit Of Vinícius Heckling

The Supercopa de España is a bit of a shambolic mini-tournament in the middle of the Spanish domestic season. Since changing the format in 2020—prior to that date, Spain did the normal thing of pitting the winners of the league and the domestic cup against each other in a one-game preseason final, but now it is a four-team knockout between those two winners and the runners-up in their respective competitions—and moving the three matches to Saudi Arabia, the whole thing has become a glisteningly slimy exemplar of world soccer's insatiable greed (the same greed has threatened to move a La Liga match to the United States mid-season, though thankfully that has not happened ... yet). The tinpot nature of the Supercopa, however, does not rob it of all of its drama, and Thursday's Atlético Madrid vs. Real Madrid semifinal saw plenty of fireworks that had little to do with the match being played, thanks to the former's manager, Diego Simeone, and the latter's mercurial star, Vinícius Júnior.