La Liga Winners and Losers from Week 19: Another Lionel Messi Hat-Trick
Now officially halfway through the season, the state of play in La Liga makes for exciting reading, with the competition wide open on all fronts: title chase, European spots and relegation battle.
Just one game remains from the first half of the season: Real Madrid vs. Sevilla, which was postponed because the league-leaders travelled to Morocco for the Club World Cup.
In our regular winners and losers column from Spain's top flight, we look at the biggest underlying stories and who takes the edge over other teams after the latest bout of fixtures. Top billing this time around goes to the teams fighting at the top end of the table, including Lionel Messi's Barcelona, after the Argentinian netted a hat-trick on Sunday evening.
Winners: All of the Strongest Sides!
1 of 6
Not just Barcelona, but each of the three of the title-fighting sides came away from this weekend with three points.
Real Madrid were first to get underway, comfortably dispatching Getafe, 3-0, after a lacklustre first half. It wasn't vintage Madrid by any means, but they stepped up a gear after the break and eventually made light work of their opponents.
Atletico Madrid and Barcelona followed suit, winning 2-0 and 4-0 respectively, with Messi's hat-trick at Deportivo La Coruna being his—and La Liga's—first of 2015.
It wasn't only the top three who impressed, though, as all of the top six picked up victories.
Sevilla, Valencia and Villarreal are all battling away with great endeavour and quality for the fourth and final Champions League spot, and all three kept up the pressure on the others with fine wins. Sevilla now have three consecutive wins, which is the longest winning streak in La Liga at present. They occupy fourth place.
Losers: Malaga and Their Fading Top-4 Hopes
2 of 6
The top six all won, but seventh-placed Malaga suffered defeat once more.
Having initially been hoping to figure in the top-four race, the Andalusian side have dropped off of late, losing two of their last three games.
Most importantly, their past two fixtures have been against top-four rivals, and they failed to win either, drawing at home to Villarreal on January 10 and losing 2-0 at Sevilla on Sunday. That leaves Malaga four points behind Villarreal and, more pertinently, eight points off the pace of their opponents from the weekend.
Winners: Elche Making It 3 Unbeaten in the League
3 of 6
A glance down the table at the bottom now, where most sides followed form; whereas all the top teams won, all the teams at the bottom lost—except Elche.
The team from the Valencian Community picked up a vital three points in their bid to escape the drop, overcoming bottom-three rivals Levante at home by a 1-0 scoreline thanks to an early goal from striker Jonathas, after David Navarro for the away team had been sent off inside five minutes.
Back-to-back league wins for Elche have moved them off the bottom up to 16th place—and just in time too, as they face Barcelona next time out.
Losers: Athletic Bilbao's Disastrous Run, Celta's Lack of Goals
4 of 6
Two exceptionally poor runs in La Liga continued at the weekend, with both Athletic Bilbao and Celta Vigo tasting defeat yet again. Between them, they have lost eight out of their last 10 league fixtures.
Villarreal dispatched with the Basque side, 2-0, which was not a great surprise in light of the form of each team, but Celta would have looked on their game at Espanyol as a chance to at least score and avoid defeat—instead, they lost, 1-0.
Celta are now in 11th after a run of nine games, no wins and just one goal scored in La Liga; Athletic are 13th, have lost five of their last six and haven't kept a clean sheet since early November.
Losers: Levante and Granada, out of Touch
5 of 6
Five of the bottom six lost, so it's possible to look at the weekend as a write-off and no ground lost for most sides, but it's really another opportunity to catch up gone.
Levante were certainly the biggest losers, since they came out second best in their struggle against Elche, not helped by the fact David Navarro was sent off for striking an opponent in the face just yards away from the referee within minutes of the start.
Granada also suffered another defeat, this time to Atletico Madrid, meaning they are two points adrift, three from safety and have not won in a whopping 15 matches now, which is easily the longest streak in the league. Their next two games are against relegation rivals: away to Deportivo La Coruna and home to Elche.
They have to pick up points.
Winners: Fighting to the End
6 of 6
It's not just technique and tactics but also tremendous mentality and physicality that win games in La Liga, as late goals and results this weekend showed.
From the 10 games at the weekend, six of them had strikes in the 80th minute or later—with three of those altering the distribution of points.
Alvaro Negredo scored a late winner for Valencia in their 3-2 win over Almeria, after the away side had twice pegged back Los Che within minutes of going behind. Rayo Vallecano overcame Real Sociedad away from home, 1-0, thanks to a Manucho finish with just nine minutes left.
Most impressively of all, Espanyol's 1-0 win over Celta Vigo came thanks to a 90th-minute winner from Felipe Caicedo.
Fight to your last breath!
