Barcelona claim La Liga title, set sights on Copa del Rey and Champions League honors
The annual handover of Spanish league titles is becoming like a hall of mirrors. Barcelona won the 2015 championship at the home of Atletico Madrid, the club who became 2014 league winners at the home of Barcelona. All very neat and tidy. But now spot the odd one out, the team excluded from this ritual. Poor old Real Madrid, a bad week, which featured elimination from the Champions League at the semi-final stage, got worse on Sunday, when Barca's 1-0 win at Atletico meant Real, who won 4-1 at Espanyol, can no longer catch up their rivals in the table and will go into next weekend's final matchday stuck in second place.
The first-placed team celebrated in numbers on Atletico's pitch, relieved that Lionel Messi's second-half goal had not been answered with an equalizer, or worse, by competitive opponents. All the Barca squad players, including those currently injured or with a handful of minutes involvement in the campaign, had come to the Spanish capital in anticipation of the crowning moment and joined in the dancing and chanting. They have other dates and - they hope - festivities to look forward to now: a Copa del Rey final in 13 days, and the Champions League final next month against Juventus in Berlin.
Those who know what it is to win the Treble are bound to believe this Barcelona side can take all three prizes. Compared with the Barca of 2008-09, the last domestic league, Cup and European triple champions, the energy and inventiveness, the tactical flexibility and the nous of the Barcelona of 2015 look at least as strong. Players like Gerard Pique and Dani Alves have been visibly rejuvenated in the last four months, in terms of their enthusiasm and confidence, but they are also wiser, cannier men than they were six years ago, when they won a league, Cup and Champions League treble under Pep Guardiola.
The potency up front, meanwhile, is becoming legendary. Neymar, who had a quiet game against Atletico, and would have known early on that he was going to be subjected to some personal aggression from a set of Atletico players who bear a strong grudge against the Brazilian because they think he showed off at their expense earlier in the season, has taken his league goal tally from nine in his first Liga campaign, 2013-14, to 22 so far in this campaign. Luis Suarez, out injured against Atletico but okay for the Cup finals, has 16, even after having been banned for two months at the beginning of his first season in Spain.
As for the main man, Messi scored his 45th Liga goal of 2014-15 against Atletico, and so has his name, appropriately, stamped on the moment that sealed the title. And it was a beautiful goal, scored after a quick, intuitive return pass from Pedro, another member of the 2008-09 side, and a gentle tickle of the top of the ball with the studs of his boot to give it just the level of pace on the ground he needed in order to strike his shot in just the right spot, with just the right force to beat Jan Oblak, Atletico's able goalkeeper.
Oblak made an excellent save later to stop a 2-0 outcome. Claudio Bravo, Barcelona's goalkeeper, had also saved well in the opening moments of a contest where there were signs of nerves from the would-be champions, and plenty of combative thrust, and threat on the counter-attack, from the outgoing champions. Bravo, in his first season at Barcelona, and in the position of sharing the goalkeeping role with another newcomer, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, who wears the gloves in Cup and European matches, has been an understated hero of Barca's league triumph. They have let in only 19 goals in 37 games.
The coach overseeing this tight defense, a midfield that has evolved into a unit less focused on possession soccer than, say, the 2009 Barcelona were, and this explosive forward line, merits a great deal of applause. Luis Enrique was appointed last summer, had never won a senior trophy as a coach before today, and was being criticized fiercely in early January, when Barca lost at Real Sociedad and he left Messi and Neymar out of the starting XI.
After that, in 20 matches Barcelona dropped just five points, to catch up on Real Madrid and stay ahead of them. "I started here 10 months ago," said Luis Enrique, allowing himself to reflect on the long road to the title. "There were a lot changes to be made, and the club had just come from a season of winning no trophies. There hadn't been the right sort of transition and so we tried to make that happen in the best way we could. We have two titles still to play for, but we have now won the one that represents consistency."
The 'transition' he referred to was partly of playing style, partly about replacing senior, totemic players. One of them came on as a substitute against Atletico, late in the game. It was Xavi Hernandez, who represents Barca's glorious, pass-and-move style as much as anybody. But he now represents the past, not the future. Atletico fans knew that. They gave Xavi a standing ovation, knowing that may well be the last time they see one of Spain's greatest in action at their stadium.
