Real Madrid chased and chased all the way up until the final weekend of the La Liga season, but Barcelona never let itself be caught.
Barcelona repeated as Spanish First Division champions on Sunday with an easy 4-0 victory against Real Valladolid. Lionel Messi and Pedro provided the goals to help Barca repeat and cap a record-breaking season that saw the club set new records for goals scored and matches won. The title is the 20th in the team's prestigious history.
Barcelona ended up not needing the victory as Real Madrid stumbled in its final match, settling for a 1-1 tie vs. Malaga. The draw, and Barcelona's victory, left Real Madrid without a trophy after a record-breaking summer of spending that saw Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo join 'Los Galacticos'.
What did you think of Barcelona's season? Still amazed by Lionel Messi's accomplishments? Impressed with Pedro's emergence? Think Real Madrid can catch Barcelona next season?
Share your thoughts below.
Real Madrid will need to spend double what it did last summer to catch the Blaugrana. Campions.
I can’t see Ibra changing his game and becoming a threat in the box. There is no reason for Barca to keep him, they have 4-5 facing attackers.
Real Madrid will keep messing with personnel because they cannot stand to wait. In the mean time, when it comes to Madrid, the trophy count this year is still Atleti 1 Real 0
Madrid’s biggest issue seems to be one of continuity. As others have posted it could be interesting to see Madrid next year, but how much will this team have changed in the offseason as a knee jerk reaction to this year’s failure? It doesn’t get much worse for them than not getting ANY hardware and losing both clasicos. At the same time they had a record season in getting 96 pts. If they stuck with Pelligrini and the majority of this squad for another year I suspect they would have a very good year next year, but given their history many players will probably move in and out of the madrid squad and make it all the more difficult for them to catch Barca.
Lots of rumors about Yaya moving on, i certainly hope not as players like he and Keita give Pep amazing flexibility and allowed Barca to overcome their various injuries this year. Frankly, i’d like Yaya to play in lieu of Busquets with much more regularity. It will be interesting to see what Barca does up front, Ibra’s year overall was a disappointment, but with Henry moving out and Bojan and Pedro improving will Barca bring a new player in or count on the youngsters to continue to grow and on Ibra melding into the squad?
My friend and I spoke about this a few days ago actually. Barcelona has developed a wonderful squad of players who, all the way d own to their youth talent, seem to be brought up to fill their ROLE on the team, not to be the star.
Everyone on this side is spectacular, but they all know their role.. Xavi, Iniesta, etc. have all kind of come up into the side with this idea of fitting into the team, which (sounds obvious) produces much better team chemistry and unity and thus a much better squad.
At the same time, let’s see if in a year or 2 Madrid can work out their little kinks and REALLY become a force.
Agree. Yaya has played absolutely BOSS this year.
Personally I think Kaka and Benzema should find another club to play for, both fo the good other own careers and for the betterment of football all over. they are wasted being forced to play second fiddle to “all hail my quads” ronaldo.
a nucular weapon?
one also must wonder how madrid will play now that this first season is under their belt. barca has been playing together for awhile, you would except them to win. granted, madrid still has no excuse for it’s CdR exit, but i say hold judgement until the end of next season.
more than one year playing together considering it’s a brand new team and coach. don’t be delusional like perez.
it’s not good for la liga to have such a massive gap like this. they need to do something.
YaYa was incredible today filling in for the irreplaceable Xavi. Pep’s only mistake this year was making Sergio first choice.
The reality is that Madrid lost the title simply because they couldn’t beat Barca. And that’s because Barca keeps finding great players who fit their system, which is probably the best way to play football devised on a club level. Madrid and many other very good sides who lost out to Barca over the last few years simply cannot rely on a “collection of talent” as their system (granted one wonders how a healthy Kaka would have impacted the race, and how a healthy Iniesta would have impacted the Champions League). If Madrid wants to overtake Barca, they either need to find a system that fits their talent level or hope Barca beats itself somehow (not giving away players like Eto’o to likely Euorpean competition would help).
Pedro came from the academy. Remember Pep Guardiola used to be the manager for the B team before he managed the first team. When he was given the job he brought up some players with him (Busquettes, Pedro, and Bojan). As you guys know the next player who looks like will move up to the first team is Jeffren.
La Liga has moments where the Valencia’s and Deportivo’s can win the title. However, as with most of European football, the gap is getting wider and wider.
I wish Europe had something other than football to pay attention to because football would become irrelevant with the same teams always winning. It’s quite boring really.
Messi scored 47 in all competitions for Barcelona this season. 85 in the last two seasons. That would be damn good work for 4-5 years.
Poor Madrid. Atletico wins Europa League and has a shot at the Copa, Barca wins the Liga, and they’re worried about where the checkbook went wrong.
Real would be favored to catch them purely because of their name, their players, and their cash. The thing that I see most in Barcalona is that the players enjoy playing with each other. They’re also smoother and have a better flow of passing. Anyone on the squad has the potential to make a difference. Madrid already look like they’re dependant on Ronaldo. Unless they can come up with some fluidity in their play and more chemistry, they’re sunk. This league is the biggest one horse race I’ve seen in a while. It rivals Inter. Just look at the point differences from 1-4 spot. 1-99pts. 4-63pts.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I just wanted to ask an actual question rather than give opinion.
25 points seperated Real Madrid (2nd) and Valencia (3rd) with a further 8 seperating 3rd from 4th. so my question is, how/when does a team like Valencia, Villareal, or Sevilla make up those points? What does that point difference mean about the rest of the La Liga? Is it only because Real and Barca are so dominate? or are those teams slipping while the big 2 continue to improve?
No idea where Pedro came from, but Barca has an awesome pipeline of young, homegrown talent to choose from. Teams could learn a lot from the Barca’s, Man U’s and Bayerns of world football.
Think about it, Barca swapped Eto and 40 mil for a striker who was sitting on the bench and probably won’t even be with the team next year…
Just a few thoughts on La Liga.
1) Messi is amazing, watching the game today it was clear to me (not that it hasn’t been for a while) that he is currently playing on another level than anyone else in his team, which is really saying something given the talent around him
2) Where did Pedro come from? obviously this late into the year I know very well who he is, but all I ever heard over the last few seasons was about how Bojan was gonna be the striker of the future. I saw that Pedro was an academy product which only reinforces the belief that Barca’s academy is 2nd to none IMHO (maybe West Ham’s earlier this decade?)
3) If 250 million can’t buy Real the title, what will?