‘April is the cruellest month… mixing memory and desire,’ the poet T.S Eliot observed. With this literary start to the weekend’s résumé of La Liga’s charms, I simply mean to point out that it’s Easter and that, although Eliot had other things in mind, it’s important to note that this traditionally intense period of football does tend to determine the fate of many.
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After the brief hiatus provided by last weekend’s international games (in which Spain failed once again to impress) the latest round of La Liga fixtures saw the beginning of a period between Friday April 3rd and April 13th where only a single day (Friday 10th) will be without football. Elche, for example, travel to Espanyol on Monday night, entertain Getafe at 22.00 hours on Thursday and then travel to Cordoba to play the late game on the Sunday. Hovering just above the relegation places, it’s a crucial six-day adventure. Get it all wrong, and Easter begins to look like death without the resurrection.
Some of the weekend’s results certainly fitted this framework. Poor Granada, the league’s lowest scorers with 19, and only seven points from their travels, faced a Real Madrid side keen to demonstrate that their post-Christmas blip was history. Able to field an almost full-strength side for the first time since Luka Modric and James Rodriguez were injured (Isco was suspended), the absence of Pepe was not seen as a problem given Granada’s lack of fire-power. Granada were indeed overrun, and the 9-1 scoreline has a slightly unnatural look to it, as though it were somehow an indecency at this level.
After Gareth Bale had opened the scoring in the 25th minute, Cristiano Ronaldo helped himself to a first-half hat-trick and then gorged further on the banquet offered to him by Granada’s defenders, eventually poaching five for the first time in his professional career. It took him to 300 for Madrid in less than six seasons, put him back ahead of Leo Messi in the ‘Pichichi’ (top scorer) stakes and draws him ever closer to Alfredo Di Stefano’s total (he is now seven behind) for Real and twenty-three behind all-time record scorer Raúl. Barring bubonic plague, he looks as though he will soon be stepping up onto the highest level of the Real Madrid podium, and he has done so in an extraordinarily short period of time. It all added up to Granada’s worst defeat in the top flight since their foundation in 1931.
Nevertheless, there was something slightly sleazy about the game, something over-obsessive in Ronaldo’s patent desire to bag as many goals as he could. He could indeed have scored eight or nine, and given the obvious fact that Granada were never at any point looking remotely as if they might stage a fight, his obsessive goal-questing looked acceptable enough. But there have been times this season when Madrid have not had things so easy, and Ronaldo has seemed temperamentally incapable of helping out, tactically unfocused and engaged on a solo mission to prove himself. Like some angry school kid unable to see that his actions have consequences for the whole class, not just for himself.
He has had enough praise heaped on him for his records, for his determination and for his sheer will to win, but as he moves into his thirties he might well reflect on the fact that to improve as player – as opposed to simply swelling the statistics – he could think a little more about the collective, and how he fits into the whole scheme, not just the part where he becomes involved at hyper-speed in the last third. It seems churlish to criticise a player of such brilliance and stature, but there was something ugly about the Granada game – though Madrid had every right to score as many as they wanted. The club has rarely distinguished itself through history as a merciful group of Corinthians – despite the fact that their white shirts were modelled on those of that great English club Corinthian FC (now Corinthian Casuals). In true Easter fashion, however, Madrid signalled their resurrection whilst condemning Granada to almost certain death.
As if the scoreline were not enough, the tabloid Marca ran a picture of Ronaldo with his arms open wide in a Christ-like gesture, under the headline ‘Resurrección blanca’ (White resurrection). Given Ronaldo’s first name, the symbolism was hardly subtle. It was Madrid‘s biggest league win in 48 years, and it will certainly lighten the mood at the Bernabéu. For the statistics sleuths, this was the first time any La Liga team had scored nine since 1978, when Barcelona beat Rayo 9-0. It was Madrid’s third 9-1 in their history (Real Sociedad and Castellon were the other victims) but it doesn’t quite equal their best ever which came in an 11-2 victory against Elche in 1959 that followed a 10-1 win over Las Palmas the season before.
Covers of Madrid papers after @Cristiano #Ronaldo‘s 5 goals: CRISTIANO CRISTIANO CRISTIANO CRISTIANO CRISTIANO pic.twitter.com/pYrmydbiZY
— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) April 6, 2015
Granada weren’t the only team to suffer a traumatic start to the Easter period. Almería, docked three points by FIFA for failing to pay a fairly miniscule amount of euros to the Danish side Aalborg over the transfer of Michael Jacobsen, were stuffed 4-1 at home by Levante and saw their manager ‘Jim’ (Juan Ignacio Martinez) sacked. Levante, faithful to their name, may be on the rise after a traumatic season so far, both on and off the pitch. Then again, they face Sevilla on Tuesday, which will prove a good test of whether they are to really make a serious bid for the safer reaches of the table. Eibar too, who were hoping to leave the bad karma of their last ten games behind (in which they’d only picked up one point) slipped back into the slough of Easter despond by losing 2-1 at home to Rayo Vallecano. On Tuesday night they have another chance to pick up that much-needed win you feel just might put them back on track to stay up, when they entertain Malaga. And yet their desperation for points – motivated by the fact that they visit the Bernabéu next weekend – might not do them many favours.
Bottom club Cordoba, to complete the Easter theme, also lost 2-0 at home to Atlético Madrid, leaving them eight points from safety. Since they have only won three games all season, it’s already a big ask to see them climbing from the mire. Their next two games, against fellow strugglers Deportivo and Elche will either bury them or offer a glimmer of hope. By next Sunday, we will have a clear sign of which sides are irrevocably on their way down.
Barcelona’s late win sends them four points clear of second placed Real Madrid with nine games remaining #SSNHQ pic.twitter.com/MF6fstsGRE
— Sky Sports News HQ (@SkySportsNewsHQ) April 6, 2015
Up at the top, Barcelona paid Celta a visit in Sunday night’s late game having slumped to their hotel siestas knowing they could not afford a slip up, with a geed-up Madrid just one point behind. Celta won at the Camp Nou earlier in the season, sparking an early crisis at the club, and the Catalans seemed nervously on the back foot for much of the first half. Celta are a good footballing side, let down mainly this season by a lack of consistent firepower, and their high pressing hustle in the first half clearly unsettled the visitors. I watched the game on a large hotel screen in a group that included an ex-Real Madrid defender, from not so long ago. Surprised by the amount of Catalan tourists in the bar, he decided to keep his head down, although every time Celta attacked he clenched his fist discreetly and encouraged them with little asides spoken mostly into his glass.
About five minutes before Jeremy Mathieu scored, he muttered to me ‘Barça are going to win this, 1-0, you’ll see’, which wasn’t so prescient since they were getting on top due to Xavi’s presence. When Mathieu scored his excellent header, the ex-player simply stared at the screen before quietly pronouncing: ‘What was the number 3 [Andreu Fontas] doing? He should have taken Mathieu out’. I asked him if that’s what he would have done. ‘Yep’ he replied. ‘Don’t write that! But anyway, now they’ll win the league, you’ll see. And that’s the goal they’ll talk about’. Maybe so.
Wednesday night’s game at home to Almería looks comfy enough, but the final Easter act for Barcelona is a tricky visit to Sevilla on Saturday night. If they come through that unscathed and beat Valencia the following week, they would want to title wrapped up by the time they visit Atlético in their penultimate game. I don’t think Mathieu’s header is La Liga’s death knell, however. It may be April, but the race for the title can easily be resurrected.
