La Liga: Barcelona's superb Calderon clincher

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  • Contrast: While Bale's form has steadily declined, Luis Suarez finishes the season on fire.

    So it’s all over for some, but not for others. The players’ strike was called off and Barcelona put in a shift that brought them their 23rd league title, against the team (Atlético Madrid) who deprived them of it last season – at this very same stage.  The scorer was, of course, Leo Messi, whilst back in Barcelona itself Real Madrid were overcoming Espanyol 4-1 in a pyrrhic victory that will set forth a period of navel-gazing and agonised reflection over what went wrong, and how next season might be a little bit more rewarding.  Maybe the worst thing for Madrid, and the sweetest for Barcelona, is that until the cold of late January set in, a possible treble for Barcelona and a trophy-less ending for Real Madrid seemed rather improbable outcomes. They say that it’s always more pleasurable to start poorly and finish well, and maybe the simple truth is that Madrid peaked too early, after their record-breaking run had made them look invincible and Barcelona’s defeat in Anoeta had appeared to plunge them into crisis.  

    In match-play terms, it’s the ‘early 1-0 syndrome’, and all coaches understand it.  The team that equalises after conceding an early goal always feels better.  They’re on the up, with time to play, and the opponents are on the down.  Maintain the initiative, and the equalising team will win.  They feel that their suffering has been rewarded, whereas the other team feels the frustration of letting the initiative slip.   Real Madrid never quite got over their 4-0 drubbing at Atlético, and its hangover hit them worst in March, when they lost two games and drew at home to Villarreal.  As Barcelona picked up steam, the title that had seemed easy picking before Christmas began to fade for Madrid. Without Luka Modric to gel the parts together, and the terrible trident of Neymar, Suárez and Messi romping though defences with abandon, there was only really one destination for the title.  The tabloid Marca, desperately looking for comfort on Sunday night, found solace in Real Madrid’s Euroleague basketball triumph (over Olympiacos), the first time they have won it in 20 years.  There have been editors in the past who would have led with the story and confined Barcelona’s title win to the back page, underneath the weather – but the current editorial team resisted the temptation. Barcelona have now won seven league titles in the last eleven years, compared to Real Madrid’s three.  Worse still for Madrid is that they have only won one league from the last seven.

    Luis Enrique is now a happy man, with two more possible trophies looking feasible.  Carlo Ancelotti, on the other hand, is casting nervous glances at the terms of his contract, which has another year to run.  Florentino Pérez has had a bad week – eliminated from the Champions League and forced to watch on aghast as Barcelona won at Atlético, and will make some decisions before long.  If the leaders had lost, then chances were they would have wrapped it up on the final day at home to struggling Deportivo anyway, so at least the Madridistas have this week to get over the pain.   Should Ancelotti be sacrificed, and some new guru – whoever he might be – brought in?  A recent straw poll suggested that a (slim) majority of the Madrid faithful would prefer to stick with the Italian, and Pérez should take note.  Ancelotti has done most things pretty well, kept egos and dirty linen off the washing line, and seems popular with the players.  He has made some mistakes, and the tiresome civil war over Iker Casillas must be ended once and for all, but it is not his fault that Pérez cannot keep his hand out of his pocket.  Indeed, as soon as Madrid were knocked out by Juventus, Pérez soothed himself and the masses by indulging in retail therapy, his only solution for a cloudy day.  David de Gea is the target, which presumably means that Casillas will at last be shown the door.  He has overstayed his welcome, and it is not his ability but rather his presence in the dressing-room that is the issue.  The other players are fed up with it all.

    Meanwhile, the new problem for Europe is no longer how to counteract ‘tiki-taka’ but how to counteract MSN (Messi, Neymar, Suárez), M & S, or whatever you prefer to call them.  It’s another way of reading La Liga this season.  After January, MSN managed 75 goals, whilst the famous BBC  (Bale, Benzema, Cristiano) achieved only half that figure.  Whilst Neymar has come of age in his second season, Gareth Bale has slipped into relative anonymity, struggling with the language, struggling with his role, and looking increasingly like a fish out of water.  Ronaldo himself, driven by a lust-crazed obsession to score, often to the detriment of the team and its collective emotional intelligence, is now also becoming a divisive figure.  Would they be better off without him?  With 45 league goals this season (he scored another hat-trick at Espanyol) it seems absurd to suggest that Madrid might prosper in his absence, and yet the theory is beginning to take shape.  Today is Barcelona’s day, but we might usefully go about discussing the theory next week.

    Atlético Madrid’s defeat means that they must win at Granada next week to ensure the 3rd automatic spot. Valencia have the head-to-head over them and lie three points behind, after being held at home to a draw by Celta.  It’s all building up to a fairly nuclear finish next week, now that the main issue has been decided.  Valencia must win anyway, because Sevilla are only a point behind them – but they travel to Almeria who must win to ensure their own survival.  Sevilla, fresh from qualifying for the Europa League final, visit Malaga, a potentially tricky game in itself, but the main interest for the final set of games resides in the fact that the Champions League spots and the relegation struggles are awkwardly intertwined.  Eibar, having garnered a miserable 5 points since Christmas, can still escape, by virtue of their 1-1 draw at Getafe and the fact that next week they close the season at home to relegated Cordoba – a team that threw in the towel several weeks ago.  If Deportivo lose in the Camp Nou, or Granada lose at home to Atlético, an Eibar win would see the Basque minnows get another season in the top flight, and a greater share of the television pot to help them buy some new recruits.

    It always seems to happen at this stage, but Granada, 9-1 victims at Real Madrid not so long ago, have now won their last three games, after only winning four from the previous thirty-four.  I witnessed their spectacular 3-0 win up in Anoeta, against Real Sociedad. The home fans booed their own players off the pitch but applauded Granada.  Sociedad were supposed to be doing their neighbours Eibar a favour by beating Granada, but they never looked up for it.  It was a bad day personally for me, after sitting through Grimsby’s defeat on penalties in the English Conference play-off at Wembley – watching from the sofa that is – and then nipping along to Anoeta for a bit of comfort, only to witness a limp performance by the home side.  Check out Granada’s third goal though, by Rubén Rochina.  It’s one of the best of the season.

    Congratulations therefore, to Barcelona, whose new mix took a while to settle in, but when it did it became an entertaining thing – slightly more fragile than the previous version of tiki-taka and relentless possession, but more open to improvisation, more direct.  It’s been a decent struggle between the two giants, a season of two halves.  It would have been fantastic had they met in the final of the Champions League, but that can wait for another day.  And there is still plenty to play for next week.  I’ll be on a cultural visit to Rayo Vallecano, but will still be alert to the rest of the day’s events.  Until next week….

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