Barcelona the winners of La Liga
After the high of winning six trophies in a calendar year, this year was always going to be less successful. Yet the extraordinary power of Barcelona FC is that, in the middle of the season, despite far away from their highest form, it looked like they might actually do it again. Playing the best football on the continent, Barcelona was a force to reckon with again this season. While they may not have played the same extra-planetary form of football as they did last year, they were still head and shoulders above their nearest competitors. Even their defeats have been in games in which they predominantly controlled and bossed.
Their Copa Del Rey defeat against Sevilla is a case in point. Despite, easily being the best team on the pitch, the Catalan giants were defeated, having unable for once during the term to take their chances. It is the measure of a quite historic team that one cup exit has alarm bells ringing that Barcelona is on the way down. Having played exquisite, champagne football during the whole season, there were some doubts, no matter how unlikely if they would be able to retain their Spanish Primera Liga title. Questions were raised when they were held to a draw to cross town rivals, Espanyol as well as when they suffered a quite astonishing defeat to Atletico Madrid 4-3. With Madrid breathing down their necks without really looking like a team; breezing through inferior opposition due to the stellar individual qualities of Raul, Xabi Alonso, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafael Van der Vaart, Gonzalo Higuain and Karim Benzema; there were question marks if this Barcelona side had the motivation or the nerve to hold out till the conclusion of the season.
In the end, it was all too easy. Nobody should not have worried, as Barcelona FC swept aside lowly Real Valladolid (who were relegated by virtue of the defeat) 4-0 to regain their Spanish League crown in front of their own fans. All the pre-match talk had been about whether Barcelona would slip in what would have been an upset of gargantuan proportions against the relegation threatened side and whether Real Madrid would be able to take advantage by downing Malaga away from home. Manager Pep Guardiola’s confidence in his team, however, was completely justified as the Catalan giants put up a brilliant performance to end the season on a high. Amid a carnival atmosphere befitting a city like Barcelona, the home side was uncharacteristically slow off the block. However, whatever nerves and butterflies there might have been were eased as news filtered in that Malaga had scored a ninth minute goal against Real Madrid.
That news got even better for Barcelona as Luis Prieto put the ball past his own goalkeeper to score an own goal. With confidence coursing through their veins, Barcelona launched more menacing attacks. Their aggression and slick passing was rewarded when four minutes later, Pedro doubled their money with an excellent finish. With Madrid trailing at half time to Malaga and two goal lead in the bank at home, the title was good as done by then. Real Madrid made a valiant effort to get back in the game by scoring just after the restart as Van der Vaart made it 1-1. Yet the Argentine genius Lionel Messi would not be denied on the final day as he scored a second half brace to fire Barcelona to a comprehensive win. Those two goals also put the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year on an equal footing with Ronaldo’s recording of scoring 47 goals in all competitions in the season. Messi’s 34 goals in the league also won him the Pichichi award, the first time he has won so.
Hence Barcelona won 4-0 and Real Madrid were left frustrated 1-1 by Malaga, the latter side winning themselves survival courtesy of their hard-fought draw against the Whites from Madrid. The end of the season is the beginning of the new Galacticos era, which has begun with a failure. Coach Manuel Pellegrini’s position is under scrutiny with club president Florentino Perez certain to ring the changes in the managerial department. With Jose Mourinho’s almost simultaneous lifting of the Scudetto, there is a strange sense of irony in the air. But these affairs will be decided in the summer. For now, Barcelona are champions; worthy champions who played the most effective football in the most attractive, almost poetic manner possible.
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