La Liga Winners and Losers from Week 25: Barcelona Close Gap, 4th Is Valencia's
Matchday 25 in La Liga saw some games of huge importance take place at both ends of the table, with four of the top six playing each other and another Basque fixture taking place, too.
Our weekly rundown of the weekend's games in Spain takes into account not just the outcomes of each match but what it means for the league table and teams' hopes over the remainder of the season.
Here are all our winners and losers from the latest round of matches, as Barcelona closed the gap to Real Madrid at the top of the table to just two points.
Winners: Barcelona and Valencia
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With four of the top six in action against each other—Real Madrid against Villarreal and Sevilla against Atletico Madrid—there were always going to be points dropped and opportunities for gaps to be opened and closed this weekend.
As it turned out, both of those matches finished level, 1-1 and 0-0 respectively, leaving second-placed Barcelona and fourth-placed Valencia clear to claim the big weekend advantage.
Barca didn't have things their own way but ended up 3-1 winners at Granada thanks to a virtuoso display from Ivan Rakitic and his link-up with an irrepressible Luis Suarez. That win closed the gap at the top to two points, three weeks before El Clasico takes place at Camp Nou. Barcelona now know that if they win against Rayo Vallecano and Eibar, they'll have the chance to go top before the end of March, if not before.
Valencia, meanwhile, now have a complete stranglehold on fourth place; they have a seven-point lead over Sevilla after beating Real Sociedad, 2-0, this weekend. Champions League football looks almost certain to return to the Mestalla next season at this point.
Losers: Atletico Madrid and Sevilla
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Defeat would have been disastrous for either team's aims for the season, but the truth is, a draw isn't much better.
Sevilla, chasing fourth, and Atletico, chasing the title they currently hold, couldn't find a way past each other, and their 0-0 draw infrequently looked like being wrecked by either side. It leaves them both way off the pace in their respective races, Sevilla being seven points away from fourth and Atletico seven off top spot.
With games running out, it looks like they'll have to settle for being also-rans—though Atletico will be mindful of not falling any lower with Valencia now only a single point behind them.
Winners: Athletic and Rayo Edging into Mid-Table Mediocrity
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Teams who have hovered around the lower reaches of the table for most of the season know that they are now probably safe, having enough good players to take points, but they also know that injuries, a bad run of form over four or five games or other kinds of bad luck could quickly see a team sucked into a relegation fight.
That won't be the case for two of this weekend's winners, Athletic Bilbao and Rayo Vallecano, who both took important wins to move into 10th and 11th respectively.
It's now three league wins in five for the Basque outfit, who are still well below last year's level but probably doing enough for an eventual top-half finish, while Alberto Bueno's four-goal haul in just 15 minutes gave Rayo a 4-2 win over Levante. As usual, it's a case of an attack good enough to stay up but a defence porous enough to cause problems for Rayo.
Losers: Eibar's Worrying Plunge
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The out-of-form side in La Liga are not one of those in the relegation zone or even in the battle immediately outside of it—but they will be if this horrendous form keeps up for another few weeks.
Eibar were tremendous in the first half of the season and sat comfortably in eighth place, but since the turn of the year, they have won two, drawn one and lost six on the bounce. They have also only scored once in those last six matches, a real problem for the tiny Basque outfit.
A drop to 13th place doesn't look like slowing any time soon, and though they still have a five-point gap to the bottom three, the lower half is congested and teams have been picking up a point or more on a fairly regular basis this season.
Two huge games in the next three—away to Levante (18th) and Granada (19th) either side of a home game against Barcelona—must yield points.
Winners: Depor's Point at the Bottom, but It Should Have Been More
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Deportivo La Coruna have only won twice away from home in La Liga this season, so a point and a clean sheet away to Almeria, a rival at the bottom of the table just one place below Depor's 15th, is no bad thing at all.
The 0-0 draw put an end to Depor's two-match losing streak, and with none of the bottom nine teams aside from these two managing to avoid defeat this weekend, it's another point further away from the bottom three. The gap between Depor and Levante now stands at three points.
However, there will be an air of frustration and missed opportunity around the team—they played against 10 men for half an hour and dominated possession and chances, while Almeria eventually finished with nine men after a second red in stoppage time.
Potential Winners: Celta's Chance to Continue Fine Form
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Monday night always brings us the final fixture of the gameweek in Spain, with Celta Vigo hosting Elche this time around.
Two recent wins for Elche took them out of the bottom three, but they have only managed to score 10 goals away from home this term. Celta, with their improved recent form yielding 10 points from the last possible 12, have to be heavy favourites because of their propensity to dominate possession and create chances to score.
A win here for Nolito and Co. would see them overtake Espanyol into eighth place, which is about as high as they could hope to finish this season after their dreadful mid-campaign scoreless run. They can't let their season meander out pointlessly with so much to make up for, and a relegation-troubled outfit should not stop them taking three points at home, particularly if they can starve Elche forward Jonathas of service around the edge of the area.
