The four teams are exempt from participation in the first and second rounds and will start in the round of 32.
The Del Rey Cup 2023-2024 It started to be disputed in October and it did the first round, with 16 of the 20 teams of the First Division who disputed their respective obligations. But four LaLiga teams, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Osasuna and Atlético de Madrid, will not compete until January 2024, in the round of 32.
Why Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético de Madrid and Osasuna will not play in the first round and second knockout round of the Copa del Rey 2023-2024
Since 2019, the Copa del Rey has changed format and also the Spain Super Cup. In concrete terms, the tournament between champions has now become a Final Four-like format, with semi-finals and finals, in which the Copa del Rey champion faces the runner-up in LaLiga and the LaLiga champion faces the runner-up of the KO tournament .
This Final Four will be held in January and, as a reward for the finalists but also as a measure to relieve the already intense schedule, The four participants in the Super Cup are exempt from participating in the first and second qualifying rounds of the following season’s Copa del Rey.
In the 2024 Super Cup, the finalists are Real Madrid, who will face Atlético de Madrid in the semi-finals as Copa del Rey champions and runners-up in the League respectively (they came third, but the runners-up in the League was also Madrid) ; and Barcelona, which thanks to its status as league champions, is in second place in the 2022-2023 cup, namely Osasuna.
RFEF
This way, no one will participate in the first two cup rounds and they will start playing in January in the round of 32, where they will also have the advantage of being paired with a team from a lower category, probably from Primera RFEF.
In its circular on the first round, the RFEF explained that “there will be 55 qualifying matches and 110 teams from the 115 participants will be paired, as the first federation champion, Amorebieta, is exempt from participating in the first qualifying match and joins the second adds. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético de Madrid and CA Osasuna will also not participate as participants in the 2024 Spanish Super Cup and will start their participation in the Copa del Rey in the round of 32.”
Source: Goal