Wave of emotions dominate an eventful final matchday in La Liga
MADRID --
Carlo Ancelotti was a spectator in what looks quite likely to have been his last working matchday as head coach of Real Madrid. The Italian served out his touchline suspension, a punishment for an overanimated discussion with a referee two weeks ago, and watched, at a remove, a game of 10 goals while listening to the loud voice of public opinion.
Ancelotti picked up his ban on a day his Real Madrid still had a possibility of claiming the Spanish league title. That seems a while back, now. The audience he joined for the final match of the season, against Getafe, sitting in a VIP corner of the Santiago Bernabeu, inevitably looked on with minds distracted at a fixture with nothing significant at stake for the club who began and ended the evening certain of finishing as runners-up in La Liga, without a trophy in 2015.
What they saw was the kind of goal-scoring extravaganza, 7-3 to Madrid by the end, that has punctuated Ancelotti's two years in charge; and what the crowd engaged in between goals was another of the plebiscites of noise that have also become characteristic at Madrid's stadium in recent years.
The referendum results on Saturday, measured by the volume of cheers or whistles, was heavily in favor of Ancelotti. The Italian coach delivered the club's first European Champions League for 12 years in 2014 and oversaw triumphs in the Copa del Rey last season and in the FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup in the last 12 months. Ancelotti was applauded long and loud before kickoff.
The crowd sense there will be a new man appointed to his job soon, and he does too. "I will meet with the club on Monday or Tuesday," Ancelotti said. "I would like to stay, and if I don't I will not be happy. But these things happen in my job, and have happened to me before." He will not rush into a club, he added: "If don't stay, I will take a year out."
As for the club captain, Iker Casillas, who may have been playing his last match as first choice goalkeeper, the votes cast by the Santiago Bernabeu crowd were not unanimous. There were cheers, there were homemade placards inviting the Madrid goalkeeper, who made his debut for Madrid in the 1990s, to stay. As the match petered to its close, there was even a rousing round of applause, and chanting of "Iker, Iker!" Helpfully, Casillas made a super save shortly before the final whistle.
But Casillas had also been jeered audibly by some spectators before kickoff and after each of the three Getafe goals he conceded in a first half of wild attacking and some very slack defending. Casillas' future is an incognito. Madrid's interest in hiring David de Gea, the Manchester United goalkeeper, is scarcely disguised, and the esteem in which Casillas, 34, is held by the club's supporters is evidently not clear-cut. Some of it is a form of nostalgia for the high standards he set in the first ten years of this century.
Contrast the adulation reserved on the same day for Casillas' friend and contemporary, Xavi Hernandez. The Barcelona midfielder played his final La Liga match for the club he has represented for his whole career so far in front of the Camp Nou crowd and the homage was emotional. Xavi, club captain, received the La Liga trophy, secured six days earlier by the new champions. He later heard Andres Iniesta, his ally for so many years in a graceful midfield, address the stadium, "We have the privilege of saying farewell to a unique player, a legend at Barcelona and in soccer," said Iniesta. "Thank you for all you have taught us." Xavi, who will play from next season in Qatar, shed tears.
He was not alone for that during Barcelona's last La Liga fixture of a season which still has two major dates for them; Saturday's Copa del Rey final, at Camp Nou, against Athletico Bilbao, and the UEFA Champions final, against Juventus, in Berlin. "I'll see you all here again in 15 days," Xavi told his 93,000 loyalists, anticipating a celebratory event after the European Cup final.
Barca dropped points, in drawing 2-2 with Deportivo La Coruna, which meant the festivities for the new champions were watched by a gleeful set of guests, too. Deportivo's point, earned after going 2-0 down to a pair of Lionel Messi goals, kept the Galicia club in the Primera Division on a day where Eibar, the club from the tiny Basque town, were relegated a year after their admired arrival in the top tier, along with Almeria.
Valencia, meanwhile, gave the upper end of the table its last-day suspense, securing fourth place, and with it access to the pre-qualifying playoff for next season's Champions League with a 3-2 win at Almeria. Paco Alcacer's goal, 18 minutes from full time, hauled Valencia above Sevilla, who finish fifth but maintain the hope that Spain might send an unprecedented five teams into Europe's most prestigious club competition in 2015-16. If Sevilla win the Europa League, whose final they contest against Ukraine's Dnipro on Wednesday (live, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports Go, 2:45 p.m. ET), they will be the first club to take advantage of new UEFA rules giving the Europa League holders a place in the group phase of the next Champions League.
If Sevilla do succeed in that, and Barcelona beat Juve, then, for the second year in succession, clubs from La Liga will have won both the main continental competitions. That speaks of a clear authority for their soccer above that of other leagues.
As for, Madrid, holders of the Club World Cup until December, they may be uncertain of their coach and captain, but at least one of their employees has a pre-eminent title to enjoy at the end of his club's underachieving season. Cristiano Ronaldo struck a hat trick in the first half against Getafe to carry his total of goals in the league to 48. He is the top scorer, well ahead of Messi, in the competition and once again, winner of Europe's Golden Shoe.
Against Getafe, Ronaldo gave way to teenager Martin Odegaard in the second half. Odegaard, making his Madrid debut as a substitute, became the club's youngest player at 16 years, five months and seven days old. Ronaldo had done his work for the evening, ensuring that, although some hierarchies have changed in Spain, some habits do not fade; Messi had scored twice for Barcelona on matchday 38; so, later in the evening, Ronaldo responded. He scored three, all in the space of 21 minutes.
