MADRID • Putting on a Barcelona shirt entails an obligation "to live up to the reputation of this club, which is the best in the world" and Ernesto Valverde's men did just that as they ran out 3-0 winners at arch-rivals Real Madrid for a 4-1 aggregate victory on Wednesday.
Luis Suarez was at his clinical best as he scored twice either side of a Raphael Varane own goal, punishing Real for missing a slew of chances in the second leg of the King's Cup semi-final.
After reaching the Cup final for a sixth straight season, the Uruguay striker claimed that he and his teammates had done the club proud.
He said: "This is another demonstration of how good this team is. People keep saying that we don't care about the Cup, but we have shown that we always want to win every single trophy.
"We knew that coming to the Bernabeu would be difficult, but we were aware we had a great opportunity to play in another final."
Teammate Jordi Alba agreed with Suarez, insisting the four-time defending Cup winners "were the better team" and underlined the importance of their triumph.
He added: "We won by a big margin. We had to suffer to win, but overall, we played well.
"We really appreciate the Copa del Rey and Real Madrid wanted to win it too. A lot of their fans arrived early to create a huge atmosphere, so we will not accept the excuse that this is a minor trophy."
And Real coach Santiago Solari accepted the European champions had only themselves to blame for not taking their chances, with Vinicius Jr particularly wasteful.
While Real's best passages of play went through the Brazil Under-20 forward, he missed all six of his attempts, which left his team "going home feeling sad".
Solari said: "Football is also about how clinical you are, and while we were committed and played with energy, we did not take our chances.
"We fell with honour, but it's difficult to talk about fairness or injustice in football.
"We hope that some of the shots we missed today go in on Saturday (in the LaLiga Clasico at Real).
"In football, you have to get back on your feet immediately."
REUTERS
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"I'm very happy for Irfan and Ikhsan, this shows they are at a good level. Hopefully, they can spur the other boys to work harder as well." Given striker Ikhsan, 20, had arrived from Norway on Tuesday and was jet-lagged, it was no surprise that Fandi opted to bench his younger son.
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