Amr Nabil/Associated Press
During the week, the Barcelona-based sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo published a cartoon of Barca's coach Ernesto Valverde hanging under a giant cow's udder, which has the word "Supercopa" scrawled across it.
Valverde is desperately holding onto one of the cow's teats, which are leaking €500 notes. There's no mistaking the message: The re-invention of the Spanish Super Cup—which is being held this week in Saudi Arabia in a new "final four" format—is all about milking the tournament for money.
There are three fundamental changes to the old, traditional format: It is no longer a two-legged playoff between the previous season's league and cup winners; instead those two clubs are joined by the second-placed teams from both competitions (or the next-highest-ranking league finisher in the event one club fulfils more than one qualification method, as Barcelona did this season) to make up semi-final pairings.