Marcelino says winning over Real Madrid is always pleasant

Lifting Supercopa de Espana can always be pleasant for

Barcelona

or

Real Madrid

as they have a chance to get their hands on the first piece of silverware available during the season, while the Blaugrana held up their end of the bargain by beating

Real Sociedad

last night, the Los Blancos fell short on the competition as

Karim Benzema’s

equalizer wasn’t enough to secure them a place in the cup’s final.

Raul Garcia

handed

Bilbao

side the victory with his brace and their manager,

Marcelino

, was understandably pleased to have made such an instant impact at

Athletic

in his post-match interview.

“The sensations are very good,”

he said.

“Winning against Real Madrid always leaves you satisfied. The work of the players has been enormous in terms of their commitment and I’m very satisfied [with them].

“We’ve taken advantage of the previous work and we wanted to give individual and collective confidence to the team. We were lucky to avoid playing against Atletico and thus we were able to train more.”

The 55-year-old manager believed his tactics were essential in the match’s result as the players were able to better assimilate the recently-arrived coaching staff’s methods.

“We wanted to apply pressure based on where the ball was,”

Marcelino said.

“I think that the middle block we used was very effective in putting pressure on each wing.

“The team’s defensive work was fantastic, as well as being able to offer something on the counter-attack. We lacked a bit of confidence in terms of moving the ball, but we can’t have it all.”