LA LIGA RUN IN : AN AFTERMATH OF THE CLASICO

One of the biggest rivalries in world football took centre stage this weekend with the Blaugrana humbled 2-1 at the hands of their fiercest rivals at the Alfredo Di Stefano, thus putting an end to their 19 game unbeaten streak. First-half goals from Karim Benzema and Toni Kroos managed to seal the win for the Los Blancos, even though Barcelona managed to pull one back through Oscar Mingueza in the second half.

The repercussions of this win however reach far and wide beyond this fixture alone, and it blew open the La Liga title race to the closest degree than it has been in recent years. The title is wide open with the top 3 teams in Spain, Atletico Madrid Real Madrid, and FC Barcelona, all in a vying distance of the La Liga trophy. Nerve-wracking for the supporting fans but mouth-watering for the neutrals.

#	Team	Pl	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Atletico Madrid	30	20	7	3	52	20	32	67
2	Real Madrid	30	20	6	4	53	24	29	66
3	Barcelona	30	20	5	5	69	26	43	65
4	Sevilla	29	18	4	7	40	21	19	58
5	Real Sociedad	30	12	11	7	47	31	16	47
6	Real Betis	30	14	5	11	40	43	-3	47
7	Villarreal	30	11	13	6	43	33	10	46

 

As things stand Atletico Madrid sit top of the table with 67 points edging past their city rivals who are trailing by a single point. Atletico had a chance to go 3 points clear at the top, with their matchday 30 fixture against Real Betis on Sunday night deciding who sits on the throne at the end of matchday 30. FC Barcelona are just two points behind the league leaders, with 65 points, albeit their loss in the capital.

The title race, however, looked sealed back in January with Atletico in pole position. Let us take a look at how each of these teams look towards the business end of the season.

Atletico Madrid

Let’s go back to the 1^st of February 2021, Atletico had just opened a 9-point gap at the top of the La Liga table with their closest competitors Real Madrid overridden by injuries and showing cracks in their title campaign.  They were still alive in the UCL with a round of 16 tie with Chelsea and the only blip in their season being a 1-0 loss to Segunda B side, UE Cornella in CDR round 2.

Title suitors

To understand how the Atletico fortunes have seemingly taken a nosedive since February, you have to understand how they were becoming such a strong suit in the first place. For this let’s look at the improvement over last season

	19/20	20/21
Points per game(PPG)	1.84	2.28
Goals per 90	1.34	1.76
xg per 90	1.38	1.29
Goals against per 90	0.71	0.66
Xga per 90	0.81	0.66

It can be clearly seen that while Atletico remained defensively solid over both seasons but their attacking numbers increased by a larger margin as they outperformed their xG output in the 20/21 season by a whopping 0.47 goals per game. This increase can be pinned down to 2 factors.

• Arrival of Luis Suarez – Luis Suarez chipped in with 19 goals and 2 assists in 26 appearances for Atletico, acting as the target man and the main outlet of goals. An astounding fact is that Luis Suarez has an xG of just 13.4 thus outperforming his goals output by 4.6 goals. Suarez provided some much-needed criticality in front of the goal, that was missing in the form of a Griezmann of the old days.
• Switch up of tactics to 3-1-4-2 – This switch enabled Atletico to open up their wing-backs in the form of Trippier, Vrsaljko, Carrasco, and Lodi to their full attacking potential while forming a 4-man defensive screen of Koke and the back 3. This also opened up the creative talents of Joao Felix and Marcus Llorente in the form of moving creators to serve Suarez. In short, Simeone switched to a more attacking approach and it paid off.

Faltering fortunes

Since February, Atletico have won just 4 of their 12 fixtures and dropped points in the league on 6 different occasions, also losing both UCL fixtures with Chelsea, thus crashing out in the Round of 16. This drastic turn of fortunes has had a catastrophic effect on their season. From 9 points clear at the top of the table to just a 1 point gap, barely sticking their necks out.

This fall, even though sudden, cannot be called surprising due to a simple fact. The team was overly reliant on Suarez to bang in the half chances and overdo the actual chance creation of the team. In football, nothing is permanent and if you overly rely on luck rather than a system you are bound to have some dark patches. Suarez has scored 3 goals in his last 9 appearances as opposed to 16 in the previous 20. And this lack of form has affected his team direly. 

Title Hopes

The Rojiblancos although in decline are still in pole position to claim the title. They are still a point ahead of their city rivals at the top. A draw in Seville last night saw them gain top spot going into Matchday 31. Atletico are heavy favourites to be 20-21 La Liga champions with the added advantage of not playing in another competition and solely focusing on the closing games of the league, as they claim their first title since 2014. However, an injury to Suarez at the moment can severely derail their title charge, along with more injuries to their main attacking outlets, Trippier and Felix in Seville last night.

 

Real Madrid

Real Madrid admittedly have never looked very convincing throughout their season and had some major blips in the Copa Del Rey and the Supercup with 2-1 defeats to Alcoyano and Athletic Bilbao in early 2021. This was followed by a loss to Levante in the league. Since then, Real have gone 13 games unbeaten.

Zidane’s men have had significant injury problems throughout their season and most of their squad has been side-lined at one point or the other. This has hurt Zidane quite a lot as they looked to have conceded the title back in January. However, a knack to get results over the line in cagey affairs and a gain of momentum in recent months now bids them as title favourites.

Injury woes

Real Madrid’s water-tight defence was the reason behind their title charge last season as they conceded just 25 goals all season. This season they have conceded 24 in 30 which shows that their defence has worsened but still pretty strong. The goals per game and points per game have reduced as well aiding the analysis that Real Madrid have worsened in all departments this season. Though true, much of this can also be pinned down to injuries in key areas.

Sergio Ramos has racked just 15 out of 30 possible appearances and the Real Madrid captain has been direly missed not just in central defence but also with his goals output. Varane has been missing as well, with brief injury runs and Carvajal, a vital cog in the Real Madrid attack, has been side-lined for most of the season. In the attacking department Hazard, much to the frustration of Madridistas, has been missing for most of the season, while Fede Valverde has been direly missed in the middle of the park.

Old Guard – as reliable as the sunrise!

Real Madrid have been quietly good for the past few months and the wins against Barcelona and Liverpool have now provided them with momentum that will fuel a title charge. It's not hard to pinpoint what runs the Real Madrid machine and as always, it’s the reliable evergreen old guard, the best midfield in the league.

Let’s take a look through La Liga statistics.

	Real Madrid player	League rank
Succesful tackles per 90	Casemiro (1.6)	1st
Posession won in final third	Modric (24)	3rd
Accurate passes per 90	Ramos (67.6) Kroos (66.2)	3rd 4th
key passes per match	Kroos (2.3)	1st
big chances created	Kroos (10)	4th
shots on target per match	Benzema (1.8)	2nd
Assists	Kroos (8)	2nd
goals	Benzema (19)	2nd

It is overly apparent that –

• Real Madrid midfield consisting of Kroos, Modric, Casemiro simply dominates the league in most areas.
• The Old Guard including the midfield and Benzema are performing at the highest level possible and although performances from Vinicius Jr and Ferland Mendy deserve credit the veterans are the ones driving Real Madrid.

 

Title Hopes

Real Madrid are one of the title favourites if not the most likely choice with the Clasico win. However, Zidane’s men could falter and the squad is stretched as it is. Lucas Vazquez and Federico Valverde adding to the long and tiring injury list, Zidane will now be hoping for a quick Ramos return to shore off his title defence and inspiring his team to a piece of recent history. Another factor that weighs into this, is Real Madrid are still alive in the Champions League with a second leg against Liverpool looming (first leg 3-1 win at home) and then potentially a UCL Semi-Final, thus contesting a two-front battle. Most fans would prioritize a league win more, but it can only be seen what the future holds for the whites.

FC Barcelona

At the start of this season, an opinion, that the impending season was over before it even began was floating around and it sounded fairly reasonable. The start to the season was hell raining onto the Barcelona camp with the club in disarray amidst corruption scandals, the president resigning, Messi threatening to leave, a fresh face in the coaching seat who looked to have run out of ideas. At one point in time, Barcelona were 13^th in the table and a dark era seemed to loom over the club.

Since then, however, the Blaugranas have pulled off something of a comeback and that too in a spectacular fashion. The clubs’ problems off the pitch though not resolved, Koeman managed to pull his band together and inject some youthful spirit into his side in the form of Pedri, Mingueza and Araujo alongside Frenkie De Jong rolling out stellar performances.

The FC Barcelona season is essentially a tale of two halves, similar to their capital rivals Atletico. Since the 14^th of December 2020 the Catalans went on an impressive 19 game unbeaten streak in the league with their captain Lionel Messi welcoming 2021 in a spectacular fashion, with 21 goal contributions in just 14 league matches. This has been somewhat marred, by disappointing losses in the Spanish Supercup final against Athletic Bilbao (2-3) and crashing out against PSG in UCL Round of 16 (5-2 agg).

FC Barcelona’s fall from grace has been well documented last season but the club seems to have turned a new leaf, at least for the time being.

A renaissance needed – a renaissance brought

Injuries in key areas, a combination of altogether failure of his players adapting to his system as well as some veterans like Sergio Busquets, Lionel Messi underperforming, forced Ronald Koeman’s hand to switch from his preferred 4-2-3-1 system and dividends did it pay! Koeman shifted to 3-4-2-1 injecting Pedri and his creative talents and was unbeaten in that formation until being beaten in the Clasico this week.

The 3-4-2-1 often shifting to Messi’s favoured 4-3-3 in attack unlocked Barcelona’s attacking options.

• Both fullbacks Dest and Alba were allowed to push up the field and create havoc along the touchlines.
• Messi in free roam with Griezmann and Dembele pushed forward has helped both Griezmann and Dembele with more goal involvements boosting their confidence.
• Pedri was allowed to work and push the ball in the forward areas enabling Messi to be better involved in the overall play alongside him.
• Mingueza and Araujo performing admirably in the back 3 having more men at the back.

 Magical Messi

Messi has been nothing short of stellar this season and his numbers – unbelievable. These are all the categories in which Messi tops the charts in La Liga.

•  Goals – 23
•  Minutes per goal – 104
• Shots on target per 90 – 2.7
• Successful dribbles per 90 – 4.4
• Key passes per 90 – 2.3
• Big chances created – 17

33 and still astonishingly productive is the summation of the Barcelona captain.

Title Hopes

Even with the loss in the capital, Barcelona are only 2 points behind league leaders Atletico Madrid with a match between these two still remaining. Even the tiniest bit of slip from the Los Blancos can hand over the title to Barcelona and with the stretched Real Madrid squad, that is very likely to happen. Barcelona on the other hand have much of their starting XI fit and ready for battle with even Ansu Fati set to return in the near future. They do have a Copa Del Rey final to play against Athletic Bilbao this weekend and Koeman would not take this lightly as this could be the only piece of silverware to salvage their season in the end. FC Barcelona have more than enough squad depth to handle this extra fixture putting a lot of variables to their advantage.

Fixture Watch

Atletico Madrid	Real Madrid	FC Barcelona
Eibar (H)	Getafe (A)	Getafe (H)
Huesca (H)	Cadiz (A)	Villareal (A)
Bilbao (A)	Betis (H)	Granada (H)
Elche (A)	Osasuna (H)	Valencia (A)
Barcelona (A)	Sevilla (H)	Atletico Madrid (H)
Sociedad (H)	Granada (A)	Levante (A)
Osasuna (H)	Bilbao (A)	Celta Vigo (H)
Valladolid (A)	Villareal (H)	Eibar (A)

• Real Madrid have the easiest fixtures of the 3 with Sevilla the hardest fixture while last 2 matches against Bilbao and Villareal will be of importance.
• The match between Atletico and Barca on matchday 35 is a potential title decider for all 3 teams.
• Atletico have the hardest fixture run with Bilbao Barca and Sociedad all competitive, while Barca have relatively easier fixtures if they do win their title decider.

Writer’s Pick

Being a Madridista giving an unbiased opinion is hard. But Atletico have major injury problems in the form of Trippier, Felix, and their main man Suarez and are logically going to drop some crucial points as they did in Seville last night. It is a battle of nerves between the two biggest teams in Spain for me. Barcelona have squad strength on their side and are hard to look beyond. But I think, Barcelona under Ronald Koeman still lacks a big game mentality which will be needed in games like Atletico Madrid on Matchday 35. On the other hand, the Real Madrid dugout holds the perfect man in the form of Zinedine Zidane to get this team over the line. In a battle of nerves, I think Zidane will emerge victoriously.