La Liga Hangover: A Weekend of Milestones, Red Cards and Title Race Escapes

Welcome to La Liga Hangover, a weekly column running throughout the season in which we take a light-hearted, though in-depth, look at the key stories and talking points from the most recent weekend of action in Spanish football's top flight. With a focus on the biggest teams, such as Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and a worthwhile nod toward the rest, we examine how the league is shaping up each week and what to look out for going forward.

It's the Hope That Kills You

"Ugh, La Liga is so boring," are words probably said by someone in your school, office or social circle in the past few hours, checking full-time results and blissfully unaware of circumstances within.

Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid all picked up three points this weekend, increasing the gap between "The Big Three" and "The Rest" as none of the sides from fourth to ninth managed to do likewise.

But scorelines are only the final sentence of an often convoluted, surprising or dramatic storyline, and that is really what La Liga is about. The journey and the football is its unique selling point, its main attraction and its inevitably overlooked fault line, because the closing remarks of a tale are what is remembered.

Everybody remembers "and they lived happily ever after," "the end" or "all was well." Nobody remembers what happened midway through chapter 16, or the brief but dramatic page 156.

Occasionally, a team will challenge the perceived monotony. Some, like Valencia circa 2004, do it over the course of a season. Some do it over the course of 90 minutes, but most often they challenge over 85 minutes and fall short repeatedly. Why? Because it's the hope that kills you.

Atleti were first up this weekend and were behind just after the break. It cannot be said they didn't play well enough to deserve the comeback victory, but for a minuscule team such as Eibar—even though they are flying this season—to be leading at the Vicente Calderon must have seemed like an impossible dream at one stage.

Levante, bottom of the table, then pushed Barcelona, top, all the way for 89 minutes. They were arguably the better team in the first half and certainly created more clear chances on goal. A deflected cross and an injury-time counter-attack sunk them.

The latter goal marks the difference in quality in the final third, of course, but it's also an indication of Levante's hope: hope that they could snatch a point against the current Spanish, European and world champions. Why would that be so? For no other reasons than a close scoreline, a below-par Barcelona performance and blind faith itself.

It was hope that spurred Levante to push forward late on and left themselves exposed at the back. 2-0 looks mundane and routine, but it was anything but that.

JORGE GUERRERO/Getty Images

As for Real Madrid: Granada held them, matched them for chances and were within five minutes of a result, but an outrageous Luka Modric performance was topped off by an equally outrageous winning goal for the Croatian.

The bottom two clubs were so close to matching two of the top three—but class won out in the end. For those fighting for the title, it's another three points to set their backs to and grimly march on toward the next match.

But spare a thought for those at the bottom, those who gave it all and had an unlikely, and ultimately doomed, hope that it might be their day. That hope killed them, again, and it's one game less to save themselves.

Jornada 23 Results

Malaga 3-0 Getafe

Atletico Madrid 3-1 Eibar

Rayo Vallecano 2-0 Las Palmas

Athletic Bilbao 0-0 Villarreal

Sporting Gijon 1-1 Deportivo La Coruna

Levante 0-2 Barcelona

Real Betis 1-0 Valencia

Celta Vigo 1-1 Sevilla

Granada 1-2 Real Madrid

Espanyol vs. Real Sociedad, Monday night, 7:30 p.m. K.O. (GMT)

Neville's Funeral, Valencia's Century

Gary Neville suffered defeat yet again as Valencia lost 1-0 at Real Betis on Sunday, and Los Che's new boss knows that the guns are out for him. Marca's Diego Pico reported fans confronted him after the most recent game, displeased as ever, but the fixture was another of fine margins that his team came down on the wrong side of.

Manuel Queimadelos Alonso/Getty Images

Hefty challenges aplenty were seen from both teams. Wilfried Zahibo was lucky not to be sent off 10 seconds before being subbed off and Neville lost both left-backs: Guilherme Siqueira to injury then Jose Gaya to a red card. Shkodran Mustafi also had what looked like a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside—though that would only have tallied his personal slate back to zero, after a poor performance on his part that contributed largely to Betis' winning goal.

Our ongoing count of Valencia's disappointment in La Liga is extended (which pre-dates Neville, remember, back into Nuno's days), and regardless of circumstances, the former England right-back knows that points on the board and league position will ultimately dictate whether or not he is viewed as a dismal failure in his first job.

So, it's now 93 days since Valencia last won in La Liga and now a full 100 days since they kept a clean sheet in the league.

Points of Authority

• Luis Enrique equalled Pep Guardiola's club record at Barcelona of 28 games unbeaten in a row.
• He also reached his 100th game in charge of Barca, with the win over Levante giving him an 80 per cent win rate—better than Guardiola, Johan Cruyff and Frank Rijkaard, per Marca.
  
• Atletico Madrid enjoyed centenary status for two big names: Diego Simeone managed his 100th win as boss of the club, in just 159 games, and Fernando Torres' injury time goal was his 100th for the club—three months after hitting his 99th.
• Betis' win this weekend gives them 25 points for the season, despite scoring just 16 goals. Malaga are in a similarly efficient boat: 30 points, but only 21 goals scored. Usually, scoring less than a goal per game will mean relegation form, but these two are bucking the trend.
• Luis Suarez became the first player to reach the milestone of 20 goals this season in La Liga.

Tactical Notes

• Athletic and Villarreal nullified each other by forgetting free-flowing attacking football and opting to see their match descend into a brawl. Foul after foul, one poor challenge after another; the only surprise was that we saw only one injury and one red card, the latter being shown to Daniele Bonera, who was booked twice in his 18 minutes on the pitch.
• Betis vs. Valencia showed us an all-new pair of partnerships down one flank for the first half: The home team's right saw new signings Martin Montoya and Charly Musonda link up, while Valencia's left was also a tag team of newbies: Siqueira and Denis Cheryshev. The Russian impressed in spells, but it was definitely the Betis duo who won out overall, especially with Musonda in the second half as he settled into his debut and was the best player on the pitch.
• Sergi Roberto again showed his versatility, his quality and his growing reliability: he started off as Barcelona's holding midfielder, then when Sergio Busquets was introduced to steady the game for his team, it was Ivan Rakitic, not Roberto, who was withdrawn. The 24-year-old then moved into a more advanced role to keep possession and help counter at pace, and he did it well

Good Week, Bad Week

The Good

Andres Fernandez and Antonio Adan deserve credit for their goalkeeping heroics for Granada and Betis, respectively.

Dani Ceballos has flattered to deceive for Real Betis this term, so his showing against Valencia was a welcome one: far more aggressive in getting forward, neat passes infield and getting into attacking areas. With Musonda looking superb on the opposite flank, more should be demanded from Betis' homegrown starlet.

Eight points from the last 12 for Rayo Vallecano have lifted them away from the bottom three again, in terms of places (three above the dotted line) if not points (two-point gap).

The Bad

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Valencia's run of no wins in 12 is well-documented because they're a high-profile side with a high-profile manager. But what of La Liga's other floundering teams?

Draw specialists Deportivo have won once in 10, though they have only lost twice in that run, too. But Betis hadn't won in nine so are also now on one in 10, and Espanyol are also on one in 10—and they face La Real on Monday night, one point and one place above the drop zone.

A special homecoming mention to Sevilla's centre-back Federico Fazio, who started the match at Celta and lasted a full 25 minutes on the pitch...before being sent-off for two bookable offences.

Sevilla still haven't won away from home this season.

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