It’s the half-way stage of the Spanish football season, and so many things have happened that it seems impossible to contemplate an equally eventful second half, but you wouldn’t bet on it. Just look at last week’s events for a snapshot of what a week can produce here; Rafa Benitez’ departure, Zinedine Zidane’s promotion, Dani Alves calling the Spanish press ‘complete trash’ and open warfare between Espanyol and Barcelona. What more could the press ask for, even if it does result in them being called to task?
However, a quick top-down glance at the half-way stage portrays a certain reality that either clashes with or confirms early-season expectations and predictions. The identities of the top three is of course no surprise, although there were rumblings afoot in August that predicted Atlético’s possible decline, without Arda Turan and Raul Garcia. They didn’t reckon on the club’s lizard-like ability to reconstitute its own limbs, with their win at a rainy Celta de Vigo (a game that was almost cancelled) maintaining their leadership at this symbolic stage. Ex-Celta idol Augusto Fernandez, bought by Atlético in the Christmas sales as medium-term cover for Tiago, made his league debut for his new side at his old team’s ground, two weeks after officially moving. It must have felt strange, but the home fans have no issues with him, applauding him off when he was substituted after 54 minutes by Yannick Carrasco, who went on to score the decisive second goal.
19 - Only Jan Oblak (18) has made fewer touches than Augusto Fernández (19) in the first half of #CELvsATM. Pressure.
— OptaJose (@OptaJose) January 10, 2016The fact that Barcelona have a game in hand is irrelevant for the moment. They will have to win that game (against Sporting). Meanwhile, the Calderón can dream. Their team has still only conceded 8 goals this campaign, which is one better than Barcelona at this stage last season. The only possible impediments to realising the dream of regaining the title is the fact that at the end of January they must travel to the Camp Nou, and then three weeks later visit their neighbours at the Bernabéu. Perhaps only then, after 26 games, will we be able to truly judge their possibilities. They’re still in the Champions League too, and visit PSV in February when the tournament resumes at the first knockout stage.
The other interesting aspect of the league to note at this stage is the unusual parity of points among the top four. Villarreal, on an awesome run of results, are on 39 points and occupy fourth place, only five points shy of Atlético. Well – six points separated the top four last season (Sevilla were 4th) but back then Real Madrid appeared to be running away with matters, also with a game in hand and 62 goals scored. It didn’t look to be such an even playing field, but appearances can deceive. Very soon after that things began to decline and Barcelona took over. Valencia were fifth with 38 points last season, a total which must seem a luxury after their latest defeat this weekend, which leaves Gary Neville’s charges on 23. They still haven’t rewarded their new coach with a league win, and were deservedly beaten in Anoeta. Things aren’t quite working for Neville yet, and although his press conferences are delivered with intelligence and an appropriate mixture of realism and optimism, the Valencia fans are infamously impatient. Next week they entertain struggling Rayo, on the face of it an ideal fixture to make a fresh start for the season’s second half. If they fail to win it, Neville might be re-signing that punditry contract in England rather sooner than he’d originally thought.
Sackings have been big news this week too, and Benitez’ departure was followed on Sunday night by that of poor Pepe Mel, eventually hounded out of Betis by a faction of supporters who had turned against him. Six games without a win and a 1-0 defeat at Getafe on Saturday night condemned him to his second sacking at a club he has always considered his spiritual home. He played for them for five seasons and managed them between 2010 and 2013, and secured promotion for them last season after a brief sojourn at West Bromwich Albion. Betis have 20 points, a reasonable haul for a recently promoted club, but another point to note at this half-way stage is whether a team appears to be improving or is on the slide. Betis had 18 points six weeks ago, so enough said.
Real Madrid, as ever, were prominent paper fillers again, and Saturday’s game in the Bernabéu enabled the faithful, certainly in a better mood after Benitez’ departure, to witness the top-flight managerial debut of one of their best-loved sons; Zinedine Zidane. Zidane does not quite enjoy the status of several of the club’s past heroes, but if he proves to be a half-decent coach then he just might step up onto the pantheons’ stage. His four sons all play for Real Madrid teams, with his eldest in the ‘B’ team and his youngest in ‘Infantil’, so you could say that he’s certainly making an original contribution. His main problem, at this initial stage, is one of credibility, since his record at Castilla was decent (he left them in second position in Segunda ‘B’ Group 2) but rather too short to allow detailed judgement. What Florentino Pérez clearly hopes for is that the parallels with Pep Guardiola, who was also considered too inexperienced for a top job when he was promoted from Barcelona’s ‘B’ team bench, will turn into self-fulfilled prophecies. Zidane has plenty going for him – he knows the players and he knows the landscape. He is liked and respected, and although there lurks a volatile nature under his apparent calm and elegant poise, he has no need to be either strict or indulgent with the players. From a purely strategic view, his promotion has come at the wrong time in the sense that president Florentino Perez’ confidence in him should have led him to appoint the Frenchman in the summer, if he was really looking for a new impetus – as he claimed to be when he bafflingly chose to sack Carlo Ancelotti.
In education, teachers are trained to understand the difference between being ‘authoritative’ and ‘authoritarian’. By all accounts, Benitez was disliked by a phalanx of the club’s heavyweights (Ronaldo, Ramos, Pepe, Marcelo) for being the latter for no apparent reason, other than to impose his own way of working, insist on a set of arbitrary rules and brook no dissent. For an experienced coach, it wasn’t very clever of him, however much you might blame Perez for employing him in the first place. Zidane, by contrast, is clearly authoritative, and as long as the results go his way, his contrasting personality will work. You could certainly see a difference in the players’ attitudes and body language in their 5-0 dismantling of Deportivo, in which Gareth Bale (ironically one of Benitez’ pets) played like a man possessed and scored a hat-trick that included two headed goals out of the football annuals of yore. The team in general looked much quicker and sharper, but the real reason for the improvement might have been the increase in facial hair on show. Dani Carvajal and Isco re-introduced that wise hipster look to the initial line-up, which is clearly a necessary recipe for success this season.
Leo Messi scored a hat-trick for Barcelona in their 4-0 win over Granada, and set himself up nicely for a fifth Ballon D’or this Monday in Zurich. Cristiano Ronaldo failed to score against Deportivo and seemed to realise, in his ever-increasing desperation to hit the net, that a hat-trick of awards was slipping from his fingers. Levante, bottom of La Liga as we glance further down, will be less interested in the goings-on in Zurich than in their own improvement, boosted by a 2-1 win at home to poor penultimate Rayo, who seem to be in a tail-spin. Last season they were 10th at this stage, nicely tucked up behind the Europa League aspirants. Talking of which, the amazing phenomenon Eibar finished the first half of the season with a 2-1 win at home to Espanyol and a haul of 30 points – 3 more than at this stage last season. They will surely not repeat their dramatic decline last season, when they picked up a mere 8 points from 19 further matches – like starvation after a banquet.
As last season demonstrated, Barcelona’s present form – with the potent additions of Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal (both of them generously bearded) – is no necessary predictor of what will come to pass in the next nineteen games. Whatever does happen, relax. You’ll be able to read it here.
