The Story So Far…
At first glance, with 3 points separating the Barcelona and Real Madrid at the top of La Liga, one could think it’s the case of the classic 2 horse race that has undermined La Liga’s claim to the best league in the world.
This La Liga season is different. The closeness between the big 2 is strange compared to recent seasons. Last season Barcelona won with a 19 point lead over Real Madrid and 11 points ahead of Athletico Madrid.
The season before that, Barca again won by 14 points ahead of Athletico in 2nd and 17 ahead of Real Madrid. This closeness isn’t a result of a leap in quality from Real Madrid, they are undoubtedly better than last year but the narrowing of points is because of the decline of Barcelona. Moreover, the ‘best of the rest’ have been playing catch up. At the time of writing, only 5 points separate 8th from 3rd with Athletico Madrid being overtaken by Getafe as the 2nd best team in Madrid. Meanwhile, Real Sociedad have put themselves in the mix by building a dynamic young team with Real Madrid loanee Martin Odegaard shining in their midfield.
So what has changed this season? First of all, Barcelona are a mess. Out of the Spanish cup and injuries have ruled out Suarez and Dembele. Summer signing Antione Griezmans relationship with Messi on the pitch is taking time to get going. That relationship wasn’t helped by Messi’s very public admission that he wanted Neymar back at the Camp Nou over the summer which led to press speculation he was angered by the clubs decision to pursue Griezman.
An extraordinary spat with the technical director and former teammate Eric Abidal compounded an already bad feeling between Barcelona’s key player and the club which has led to a flurry of rumours about Messi leaving for free in the summer. Incredibly, Messi has a clause in his contract that allows him to leave for free should he request it. Despite this speculation, none of this has affected his performance on the pitch. Sure, at the time of writing he has gone 4 games without scoring but in that time he has contributed 7 assists in that time.
He is still the beating heart of this team and if Barcelona are to win again they will need to make sure Messi doesn’t slow down. Not an easy ask when he’s 32 and relied upon in every game.
Real Madrid, on the other hand, have finally turned a corner in the post-Ronaldo era, with Zidane slowly starting to rebuild a competitive squad with an ageing group of players at its core.
Things were not good at the start of the season. Eden Hazard arrived in the summer heralded as Ronaldo’s replacement (or the nearest they could buy) but did not start well. He was overweight and didn’t score his first goal in the Bernabeu until October, then suffered a long term injury that ruled him out until February. Last seasons stand out performer was Vinicius Jnr and the young Brazilian was expected to kick on this year but had a very slow first half of the season.
At its lowest point, the Spanish media openly asked Zidane in a press conference about the prospect of being sacked. Those voices who claimed his 3 champions league victories were more down to the presence of Ronaldo than his own ability as a manager began to rise. However, Zidane has turned a corner. The additions of Ferland Mendy and Fede Valverde into the starting 11 strengthened the side.
Toni Kroos has openly admitted the team has its desire to win back after a period of being sedated by victory. Isco, at one stage on the cusp of being moved on by former manager Santi Solari, has been reborn and Thibout Cortoius is showing the form that made him the best in the world at Chelsea. He has kept 11 clean sheets and only conceded 11 goals in 20 matches. That kind of form has contributed to Madrid becoming the team which has conceded fewer league goals than any other side in Europes top 5 leagues – 14 in 11 matches.
We are now entering ‘squeaky bum time’ as Sir Alex famously stated. Madrid and Barca face each other at the Bernabeu in what might become a title decider and have crucial matches in the champions league against Man City and Napoli respectively. With Liverpool effectively Premier League champions already keep an eye on La Liga because the way things are going it’s going to go to the wire.
