1918 Copa del Rey final

The Copa del Rey is an annual single-elimination tournament which at the time, before the formation of the national league, consisted of the winners of Spain's eight regional leagues. Real Unión Club and Madrid FC had qualified to the 16th edition of the Copa del Rey as champions of the North Regional Championship and Central Regional Championship, respectively.

Although Real Unión had not won the final before, it was the product of the merger between Irún Sporting Club and Racing Club de Irún, the latter of which had won the 1913 Copa del Rey. In the quarterfinals, Unión beat Sporting de Gijón 4-1 thanks to a hat-trick from René Petit and a header from Agustín Amantegui.[6] Sporting's goal also came from a penalty.[6] Two days later, Unión beat Real Fortuna FC in the semifinals, again with a 4-1 result. Madrid newspaper Gran Vida's Fr. Nasarre mentions an upset by the galicians was expected and noted the "excellent" quality of their players, although their lack of cohesion allowed Unión to keep possession of the ball throughout the match and win.[6]

Madrid faced Catalan champions RCD Espanyol in the quarterfinal. The first leg was played in Barcelona, with the match delayed by one day due to strong rains that lasted until six in the afternoon on the original day of the match.[7] Espanyol eventually won 3-0.[7] In the second leg, Madrid beat the Catalans with one goal, Espanyol playing with too much restraint to take advantage of the exhausted locals according to R. Ruiz Ferry of El Sol.[8] Under the rules at the time, aggregate score was not used as a tie-breaker, and so a replay match was played 2 days after the second leg even though Espanyol had scored 3 goals to Madrid's 1 over the two legs. Madrid won 2-1, although Ruiz Ferry commented that they looked dominant throughout the match.[9]

The semifinals saw Madrid play against Southern Region champions Recreativo de Huelva. In the second leg, Madrid won 4-0 and thus qualified for the final.[10]