Real, Barcelona locked at 2-2 in Supercup

Real Madrid and Barcelona drew 2-2 in the first leg of the Spanish Supercup on Sunday in front of a full house of 80,000 in Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu. The result leaves the tie finely-balanced ahead of the second leg on Wednesday in Barcelona. Mesut Ozil gave Real a 13th-minute lead before David Villa and Lionel Messi put Barcelona ahead at the break. The Spanish and European champions then celebrated their interval advantage by announcing that they had finally agreed a deal with Arsenal to end their long-running pursuit of Cesc Fabregas. But Real took a little shine off the news when Xabi Alonso levelled the tie nine minutes into the second half. For both teams this was the first official match of a new season and the chance to renew their intense rivalry after last season's explosive combats in three different competitions. In the build-up, Barca coach Josep 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 Madrid who fielded the same 11 that lost 5-0 to Barcelona in La Liga last season. This however was a different Madrid. After eight minutes, a close range Karim Benzema header produced a superb fingertip save from Victor Valdes. Madrid's efforts were rewarded with the first goal as Ozil cooly slotted home with his right foot after good work on the right from Karim Benzema. At this stage Madrid were dominating with Barca struggling to produce their usual passing game. It wasn't until the 35th minute that the Catalans managed their first attack and from nowhere Villa equalised with a curling right foot shot from the left hand edge of the penalty area. Madrid responded with the better attacking play and Cristiano Ronaldo shot high from wide left on 44 minutes. It was Barca however who then went ahead. Messi took advantage of defensive mistakes by Pepe and Sami Khedira to stroke the ball into the net in first-half injury time. The second-half started slowly until Xabi Alonso equalised on 53 minutes with a low driven shot from just inside the area after Barcelona failed to clear a corner. Ronaldo tried on a number of occasions to conjure up a winner for Madrid and Messi came close with a free-kick 12 minutes from the end for the Catalan side. However neither team looked likely to win the game in the final minutes, with both content to keep possession and play down the clock. Jose Maria Callejon and Fabio Coentrao appeared in the second half to make their Real Madrid debuts while Xavi, Pique and Pedro came of the the bench for Barcelona. All should find themselves involved at some stage on Wednesday when the first title of the season will be decided.