La Liga Winners and Losers from Week 28: Barcelona Win El Clasico
The eyes of the world of football were largely trained upon La Liga this weekend, with El Clasico taking place at the Camp Nou on Sunday among the other matches over Matchday 28.
Our weekly analysis of the happenings in Spain naturally has the spotlight on Barcelona's win over Real Madrid, but we also look at each of the matches in turn to see how the outcomes affected the top flight as it heads into the final 10 games of the season.
Here are all our winners and losers from the Primera division in Spain.
Winners: Barcelona, 2-1 Victors
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Barcelona had to defend deep, try to control space and make the most of few opportunities in the first half against Real Madrid, but after the break came into their own and totally dominated the latter stages of El Clasico.
They made tremendous use of increasing spaces in midfield after Luis Suarez's match-winning strike and, in truth, should have made the scoreline even more emphatic, with all the front three passing up chances to find the net. In the end, the 2-1 win over Real was enough; the gap at the top is now four points with 10 games remaining and Real are firmly in catch-up mode.
The treble is still on.
Losers: Real Madrid, 4 Points Back
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Real Madrid will point to having the better of the first half, but the game is twice as long as that, and overall, they were not the better team. A few chances went begging and a goal was narrowly ruled out for offside, but as the game went on, there was a clear divide between the attack and the rest of the team.
Until Carlo Ancelotti can fix this malaise of the front players, or else take one or more of them out of the team, Real are going to struggle to consistently perform at the highest level.
It's now just one win in five games in all competitions for Real, with three defeats in that time, and four points is going to be very difficult to make up at this stage of the season in La Liga.
Winners: Valencia Going from Strength to Strength
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Friday night's game saw Valencia pick up a resounding 4-0 win over relegation-troubled Elche, taking the points thanks to goals from Andre Gomes, Paco Alcacer, Nicolas Otamendi and an own goal.
Los Che have been in tremendous form of late, winning six of their last seven including this one to put themselves in the driving seat for the third automatic Champions League spot for next year. There is, of course, still plenty of time left in the season and Atletico Madrid will come hard again—but Valencia will also have half an eye on the two sides above them, no doubt.
A tough game next time out against Villarreal will be another test, but for now, Valencia are looking strong and finishing the campaign well.
Losers: Villarreal's Season Has Collapsed
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Villarreal boss Marcelino has gambled for the past month or so, resting stars in La Liga to go all out for the two cup competitions—and it has backfired spectacularly.
Out of the Copa del Rey, out of the Europa League and now well off the pace for fifth place in La Liga, Villarreal just couldn't overcome Sevilla in the past few weeks, losing three games out of three against the Andalucians—including a home 0-2 reversal on Sunday.
Marcelino has performed admirably over the course of the season as a whole, but his decision-making in selections and tactics have yielded nothing but defeats when it has counted most. Right now, they remain in sixth, but they are six points off Sevilla, haven't won back-to-back league games since January and face Valencia next week.
Winners: 5 in a Row for Valverde and Athletic
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The only way was up for Athletic Bilbao earlier in the season after a dreadful first half of the campaign saw them in the relegation zone for a significant period.
Even so, their current run is impressive: five wins on the spin to push them up into the top eight and making the gap bigger every week to the bottom half of the table. Ernesto Valverde deserves credit for rearranging the squad to fill key positions in a different way—Oscar de Marcos at full-back, Mikel San Jose holding in midfield and so on—to ensure his team gets points on the board and climb the table.
They face a big run now against Sevilla, Valencia and Espanyol, but even if things don't quite go their way, their recent run almost certainly helps to ensure a top-half finish.
Losers: Relegation Strugglers, Again
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Once more, the teams at the bottom of La Liga found things tough going this weekend: none of the sides from 12th downward managed a victory.
A ninth straight defeat for Cordoba means we can probably ignore them now, they're down and out and seven points from safety, but it remains tight with four points separating 15th to 19th. Eibar finally managed a draw to stop their horrid run, with the point enough to inch above Elche in the standings, but for Almeria and Levante, it was another bad weekend to forget.
None of the relegation-fighting sides have managed a win in the past two gameweeks, and next week's matchup between Almeria and Levante is looking crucial.
