When FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta says that nobody wants to win the Spanish league championship this season, he is more than just right on the cue. Real Madrid went a massive 7 point clear at the top in La Liga in late December with a finely tuned 1-0 win over their archrivals Barcelona and after Week 31 they still retain the same advantage over the Catalan giants even though at one point in all these intervening weeks the Merengues were just two points ahead.
Real Madrid started this week in La Liga 7 points clear of—get this—Villarreal who had leapfrogged the Blaugrana into second spot in the table last week. But when the 30 times Spanish champions failed to win against Real Mallorca away on Saturday, many thought that both Barca and Villarreal would now flex their muscles, wrestle advantage and trim the gap at the top of the leaderboard.
After all, Madrid could only manage a 1-1 draw with Mallorca and that too with some help from the referees who got quite a number of decisions against Mallorca wrong. Wesley Sneijder had given Real Madrid the lead in the 43rd minute although Mallorca had the better of the chances in the first period of the match but the Madrid giants failed to hold onto their advantage in the second half after Sergio Ramos got his marching orders for two bookable offences and then Borja Valero equalized for the Islanders with just under 20 minutes remaining on the clock.
Madrid’s lead was 7 points over Villarreal and 8 over Barcelona and when the two title challengers came into action on Sunday, they both knew that they had the knives to slim the gap between them and Real Madrid. But neither Barcelona’s nor Villarreal’s razor had any sharpness and if anything, they were suspected of not possessing any razor at all.
Because while Barca hit the woodwork on three occasions against a defensively compact Getafe side that was truly tough to break down and failed to score (and thankfully didn’t concede either), Villarreal blew their chances of closing on in what would be their first ever Spanish league triumph when they went down 2-0 to Sevilla FC at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on Sunday after goals from Luis Fabiano and Frederick Kanoute—a penalty—sank down the Yellow Submarine. Not that Barca and Villarreal didn’t try but while Frank Rijkaard’s men failed to get past the final hurdle and might count themselves unlucky against Michael Laudrup’s Getafe, Manuel Pellegrini’s Villarreal side failed to provide the killer pass even though hey retained possession and control for much of the match.
So Barca and Villarreal are now locked on 59 points, 7 points off the pace, with Barca in second ahead of Villarreal because of better head-to-head record. Getafe are 12th with 40 points while Sevilla remain 6th in the table, just 5 points off the prized fourth spot.
Atletico Madrid continue to occupy that fourth spot that is also the final UEFA Champios League spot available from Spain and this weekend they exhibited masterclass performance. Atleti scored no fewer than 6 goals against Almeria on Sunday as both Simao and Sergio Aguero hit the back of the net twice to win the game 6-3 at the Vicente Caldron in what was reminiscent of the 4-3s that Atletico had played out earlier in the season.
Javier Agiurre’s side is now 3 points ahead of fourth place chasing fifth place Racing Santander who went down 3-1 to a resurgent Deportivo la Coruna at the Sardinero on Sunday. Xisco scored a hat-trick in Depor’s 3-1 win over Real Murcia last week and continued his scoring panache by netting twice against Racing this time. Depor are13th in the table, 7 points above the dropzone.
Valencia’s 3-2 win over reigning Spanish champions Real Madrid a fortnight ago did bleed in a ray of optimism but Ronald Koeman has failed to arrest that hope in the last two weeks. Last weekend Valencia were convincingly demolished 3-0 by Real Mallorca at the Mestalla and this weekend Los Che went further lost in the sea as they were beaten 1-0 away at 19th placed Real Murcia who have now gathered maximum points in two successive home matches. Valencia are not much better off though as Ronald Koeman’s side still have to battle relegation woes for the remaining 7 matches of the Spanish season. Valencia stay just 6 points above the dropzone.
Both Recreativo de Huelva and Real Betis continue to pull themselves out of the relegation mire while Real Zaragoza continue to drag themselves into it. Sinama-Pongolle was on target for Recrea as they defeated Osasuna 1-0 away from home while Real Betis climbed to mid-table by consigning Zaragoza to a 3-0 humiliation at La Romarede. Zaragoza stay stuck in 18th.
Elsewhere in La Liga this weekend, Atletic de Bilbao seep into the top half of the table by beating 7th place Espanyol Barcelona 1-0 at Sam Mames with a Garmendia strike 14 minutes into the match while Valladolid gained three vital points in their strive to stave off relegation into the Segunda Division by drubbing rock-bottom Levante 3-0 at Cindad de Valencia.