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The weekend’s La Liga action confirmed that whoever wins Spain’s title is probably going to stumble over the line, exhausted, embarrassed and underwhelming.
Barcelona defeated Real Sociedad 1-0 in a turgid performance against a rotated La Real side — winning thanks to a dubious penalty after Real Sociedad were denied one of their own which looked at least as givable. The league lead was re-taken, but even more doubts were generated. Plus, a row between Jordi Alba and supporters was sparked over the whistling of Barca players.
Madrid? They were pallid, sloppy and lost 2-1 to Betis down in the seething, green-and-white cauldron that is Benito Villamarin. Afterwards, a succession of their players, and manager Zinedine Zidane, owned up to the fact that their performance had stunk the house out.
“That might have been our worst performance of the season,” said the Madrid boss. Ramos added: “When you don’t actually do what you’ve been practising in training all week a result like this is normal. We lacked intensity.”
One thing which unites Spain’s top two teams is that they look mentally and physically drained. On and off the ball thoughts are processed more slowly, creative movement is delayed, the amount of high-intensity kilometres covered is lower and more passes are misplaced. The entertainment value as a whole is down and the ball is circulated with less and less wit and less and less risk.
Another thing which unites them is their neck-and-neck struggle at the top of La Liga. You could, if you were a chancer, portray the snapshot picture of how the top of the table looks as something positive. There are 11 matches left and it’s true that they will be played in a high-tension, “first-slip-loses” atmosphere. It’s theatrical.
But it’s also inarguable that this is Spain’s least impressive, least persuasive, and least thrilling football campaign for many seasons. Just take the last 10 years as a yardstick.
Barca and Real Madrid have currently amassed 114 points between them, scored 112 times total, have goal differentials of 32 and 30 respectively and have lost eight league matches combined. There hasn’t been a season since 2009-10 where, by this stage, all those significant markers weren’t noticeably better than now.
The absolute high points of those years since 2009-10, if measured up against this term, underline that point pretty dramatically. For example, when Barca and Atletico Madrid were battling for the title in 2017-18 their TOTAL goals conceded between them after Matchday 27 was 25 (compared to 50 by Barca and Real this term).
When Madrid led the race from Barcelona in 2011-12, the two had scored 170 goals between them after Matchday 27 (the figure is 112 this season). And don’t treat that as a freak occurrence — the goal total, at this stage, in 2014-15 was 155.
The highest points total, between the leading two sides, after match 27 of any season in the last 10 years was 141 when Barcelona led Jose Mourinho’s Madrid in 2010-11. This season the points aggregate is a whopping 27 fewer. There are many more examples — but I won’t labour the point.
I’ve consistently scorned those who boasted that a point of strength in England’s Premier League was that the lowest of the low in that division “could always beat the top dogs”. Their argument was that this indicated robust Premier League health.
That argument doesn’t stand up — as it was more a marker of weakness in the leading sides. An occasional shock? The need to be ultra focussed and intense whoever you’re playing? Fine, in both cases. But to boast that the weakest, least impressive, most likely to be relegated sides were “always” likely to defeat England’s leading two or three clubs in any given season wasn’t a proud boast — not in my view, anyways.
That Levante have beaten both Barcelona and Madrid this season is fabulous for the Valencian club and their coach Paco Lopez (who regularly carves up the Blaugrana in the Copa del Rey and La Liga) but unimpressive as an indication of the big two’s health. Madrid losing to Mallorca, to Betis in Seville for the first time since 2012, and Barcelona losing to Granada for just the second time since 1972, are all testimony to decline.
Some moan about the hegemony which Barcelona and Real Madrid, with the notable exception of Atletico, have imposed on la Liga since the days when Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna were title winners. But that happened because, across those years, the three biggest sides were playing phenomenal football — consistently.
It wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, because the rest of Spanish football was weak. Their dominance came at a time when Valencia and Sevilla won European trophies. When Atleti consistently showed that they were a match for any Premier League team. When Espanyol and Athletic Bilbao reached finals and when clubs from small communities like Villarreal and Osasuna were UEFA competition semifinalists for heaven’s sake.
By definition, La Liga was an ultra-competitive, ultra-skilled, well-coached, testing and unforgiving championship. That it became dominated, via some of the stats I’ve listed above, was testimony to greatness from Real Madrid and/or Barcelona. A greatness which is now dissipating.
The Copa del Rey backs up this narrative. I know very few people, outside the committed fanbases of Madrid, Atleti and Barca, who don’t agree that this season’s Cup competition has been the most thrilling, intriguing, uplifting and downright enjoyable in years. However, it’s a fact that this will be the first time in 12 editions that the final won’t feature Madrid, Barcelona or Atleti.
The former two were knocked out by the finalists, respectively Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao. Atletico Madrid by third-division outfit Cultural Leonesa. That first final between the Basque behemoths since 1910 will be fantastic for the romantics, for the communities in Bilbao and San Sebastian, for those who wish to market the competition worldwide.
The throbbing blue-and-white plus red-and-white tumult in Sevilla, where the final is to be played next month, will be an eighth wonder of the world — simply sensational. But the fact that as soon as the competition reverted to one-off ties, no home and away, Madrid, Barcelona and Atleti were all knocked out early, tells a story about how in recent seasons they had begun to complacently rely on bigger budgets and deeper squads winning out over 180 minutes. Their all-or-nothing competitive mentality had rusted. They were playing with a safety net.
It’ll be immensely helpful to the competitive nature of these three clubs to have this Copa format of one-off, knockout football retained in the coming years. It will also benefit the less-heralded sides who throw everything at a potential Copa win now that the format “favours” them — or at least takes away the unfairness of a two-legged affair against one of the giants.
Sadly, over the coming week and a half there’s more threat that evidence of decline may be produced.
Perhaps Atleti hold on to their slender lead at Anfield? Perhaps Barcelona edge past Napoli with the benefit of Griezmann’s away goal? Maybe the perpetually surprising Real Madrid somehow carve success from the jaws of failure at Manchester City?
But with Valencia already 4-1 down to Atalanta there’s a scenario where, if they suffer a bad few days, all of Spain’s Champions League representatives could be bounced before the quarterfinals for the first time since 2004-05.
Fine, it might not happen. But are you absolutely rock-solid certain that it won’t?
Let’s leave Luis Enrique’s return to the Spain bench and his first couple of tough matches, against Holland and Germany this month, for another day. But La Roja’s recent tournament performances and even the manner of qualification for Euro 2020 suggests that the pattern is similar to La Liga’s leading clubs: Fighting decline, managing change and looking around for thrilling young players who’ll lead the charge towards a brave new dawn.