La Liga Table Week 10: Separating Contenders from Pretenders Atop Standings
The old critique of La Liga in the past was that it was a two-team league, as Barcelona and Real Madrid duked it out for league titles and the honor of having the world's largest payroll.
And then last season happened and, lo and behold, Atletico Madrid made La Liga a three-club rodeo. Suddenly, things had gotten a lot more interesting atop the table.
Early in the season, five teams have started to separate from the pack in the Spanish league, but which of these teams are contenders and which are simply pretenders? Let's break it down.
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Standings
| 1 | Barcelona | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 3 | 20 | 22 |
| 2 | Sevilla | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 9 | 8 | 22 |
| 3 | Real Madrid | 9 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 33 | 10 | 23 | 21 |
| 4 | Valencia | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 20 | 8 | 12 | 20 |
| 5 | Atletico Madrid | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 7 | 8 | 20 |
| 6 | Celta Vigo | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 16 | 11 | 5 | 16 |
| 7 | Malaga | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 15 |
| 8 | Villarreal | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 14 |
| 9 | Rayo Vallecano | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 16 | -5 | 11 |
| 10 | Espanyol | 9 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 10 | -1 | 10 |
| 11 | Eibar | 9 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 11 | -2 | 10 |
| 12 | Getafe | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 13 | -7 | 10 |
| 13 | Almeria | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 10 | -3 | 9 |
| 14 | Granada | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 13 | -7 | 9 |
| 15 | Athletic Bilbao | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 12 | -6 | 8 |
| 16 | Deportivo | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 11 | 19 | -8 | 8 |
| 17 | Sociedad | 9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 14 | -4 | 6 |
| 18 | Cordoba | 9 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 14 | -8 | 5 |
| 19 | Elche | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 21 | -13 | 5 |
| 20 | Levante | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 28 | -24 | 5 |
Contender: Barcelona
So the team atop the table now gets Luis Suarez to bolster an already devastating attack?
Look out below.
Of course, one of the teams below, Real Madrid, just humbled Barcelona with a 3-1 victory in El Clasico, a reminder to Barca that the La Liga schedule is dark and full of terrors. Like so many before them, the Catalans had little answer for Real Madrid's blistering counter-attack, made all the more worrying by the fact that Gareth Bale wasn't even in action.
The Catalans are going to be scary once they establish a clear system with a fully conditioned Suarez leading the line next to Lionel Messi and Neymar.
Of course, the lack of the former and the perhaps unwise decision to start Suarez based on the game plan this weekend may have doomed them against Real Madrid, as Guillem Balague told Sky Sports:
"[Suarez] wasn’t to blame for anything really. He did well with the energy levels that he had, but it all goes back to the gameplan and what Luis Enrique wants to do with his side.
Not everybody is sure and I’m not sure what he wants to do with it. In a very subtle way, the Catalan press are asking if he wanted the team to keep the ball, pressure high, recover it early and use the quality of the front three to do damage… Well, Luis Suarez couldn’t do it for the 90 minutes or the time that he was there.
You had a midfield and a defence that was scared of Real Madrid counter attacks and dropped deeper, so where do they want to defend?
"
Barca's summer moves left more than a few folks wondering how the Catalans would approach this season from a tactical perspective.
This weekend's rough loss to Real Madrid has turned that curiosity into a panic for some Barca supporters. Barcelona can play pretty much any way they want against many teams with Messi, Suarez and Neymar atop the attack.
But when the big boys come calling, they better have a strong system in place. If they don't, this contender will have to be considered a pretender. But it isn't quite time to trigger the alarm system just yet.
Pretender: Sevilla
Sevilla may be tied with Barca atop the table, but you need to look no further than September 27 to determine why they aren't a true title contender. On that evening, Sevilla were smoked by Atletico Madrid, losing 4-0 and drawing a firm line in the sand between La Liga's top three contenders and the rest of the pack.
Sevilla don't really have a signature league win to this point. They've drawn with Valencia and have won their other seven fixtures, so you have to give them some credit there, but the rough defeat to Atletico was a painful reminder that Sevilla remain in the second tier of La Liga teams.
Contender: Real Madrid
If there were any doubts about how dangerous Real Madrid can be, their convincing 3-1 win over Barcelona erased them. Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player in the world at the moment, Karim Benzema has been brilliant this season, James Rodriguez and Toni Kroos have fit right in and, oh yeah, they beat Barca without Bale.
Now that's a frightening thought, isn't it?
The other scary thought is that in a game with more star power than any other matchup in the world, with the likes of Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar trotting about, it was Benzema who stole the show.
"He knows how to be discreet enough in these sorts of games, and then he appears at the right time," Barcelona defender Jeremy Mathieu told RMC Sport, via Goal.com.
"Madrid pressed and pushed in the first half, and he hit the uprights. He knows how to pop-up when required, is always available for his team and works very hard."
After losing two of their first three league games, Los Blancos have started to hit their stride. That's a frightening prospect for the rest of Spain. Heck, for the rest of the Europe.
Pretender: Valencia
Valencia's 3-1 win over Atletico Madrid is the feather in their cap thus far this season, and the draw against Sevilla was a solid result as well.
The team's balanced attack and solid defense to this point are reason for optimism, but a relative lack of star power compared to the league's top three teams seems likely to ultimately be Valencia's undoing.
A Champions League spot? Always feasible. A La Liga title? Extremely unlikely.
Contender: Atletico Madrid
Atletico have beaten Real Madrid twice (one was a victory in the Super Cup) and smoked Sevilla, though a 3-1 loss to Valencia was cause for the wringing of a few hands. Even a new-look Atletico side has huge expectations, after all, following last season's near-double of a league and European title.
Despite the loss of several players, key among them Diego Costa, Atletico keep ticking along, and one would guess Diego Simeone's men will only improve as they continue to jell. A repeat of last year's league conquest isn't out of the question. Far from it.
