Super cup

A super cup is a competition, usually but not exclusively in association football, which often forms the "curtain-raiser" to a season. It is played by two competition winners of the previous season. On a national level by the knock-out cup winner and the league winner. There are also continental super cups, like the UEFA Super Cup in football, which puts together two UEFA competition winners. Sometimes these are two-legged ties, with a match played at each side's stadium, but increasingly they are one-off fixtures at a neutral venue, such as a national stadium. Some Super Cups have even been staged in venues outside their home country, such as the Italian, French and Turkish games.

If the league champions are also the national cup winners, the winners may play a runner-up in one competition.

Football

National Supercups

The following nations have an active super cup competition:

Albanian Supercup

Algerian Super Cup

Andorran Supercup

Argentinian Super Cup

Armenian Supercup

Azerbaijan Supercup

Super

Super may refer to:

Computing

Films

Music

Other uses

Cup

A cup is a small open container used for drinking and carrying drinks. It may be made of wood, plastic, glass, clay, metal, stone, china or other materials, and may have a stem, handles or other adornments. Cups are used for drinking across a wide range of cultures and social classes, and different styles of cups may be used for different liquids or in different situations.

Cups have been used for thousands of years for the purpose of carrying food and drink, as well as for decoration. They may also be used in certain cultural rituals and to hold objects not intended for drinking such as coins.

Types

Names for different types of cups vary regionally and may overlap. Any transparent cup, regardless of actual composition, is likely to be called a "glass"; therefore, while a cup made of paper is a "paper cup", a transparent one for drinking shots is called a "shot glass", instead.

Cups for hot beverages

While in theory, most cups are well suited to hold drinkable liquids, hot drinks like tea are generally served in either insulated cups or porcelain teacups.

Lionel Messi

Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi (Spanish pronunciation: [ljoˈnel anˈdɾes ˈmesi]; born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Barcelona and the Argentina national team. Often considered the best player in the world and rated by many in the sport as the greatest of all time, Messi is the only football player in history to win the FIFA Ballon d'Or five times, four of which he won consecutively, and the first player to win three European Golden Shoes. With Barcelona he has won seven La Liga titles and four UEFA Champions League titles, as well as three Copa del Rey titles. A prolific goalscorer, Messi holds the records for most goals scored in La Liga (299), a La Liga season (50), a calendar year (91), a Champions League match (five), and most Champions League seasons (five).

Born and raised in central Argentina, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency as a child. At age 13, he relocated to Spain to join Barcelona, who agreed to pay for his medical treatment. After a fast progression through Barcelona's youth academy, Messi made his competitive debut aged 17 in October 2004. Despite being injury-prone during his early career, he established himself as an integral player for the club within the next three years, finishing 2007 as a finalist for both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year award, a feat he repeated the following year. His first uninterrupted campaign came in the 2008–09 season, during which he helped Barcelona achieve the first treble in Spanish football. At 22 years old, Messi won the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year award by record voting margins.