La Liga Winners and Losers from Week 36: Barcelona on the Verge of La Liga Title
Week 36 in La Liga: That's when the title was essentially handed back to Barcelona, as the Catalan club went four points clear at the top with only two matches left to play.
There are still more issues to be resolved throughout the rest of the league, though, so our assessment of the table and the teams after the latest round of matches takes in everybody else beside the two biggest clubs in the country.
Here are our biggest winners and losers from the most recent weekend of games in Spain.
Winners: Five Wins and Five Clean Sheets Take Barcelona to the Edge of Success
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Barcelona's season has been excellent and extremely consistent as a whole, but they have really shown mental and tactical resilience, as well as on-pitch quality, at the key point of the season to all but wrap up the title.
Succumbing to a 2-2 draw at Sevilla after being two goals up, it would have been easy to think that the team's bottle or fight for the title wasn't where it needed to be. However, since that game in early April, Barcelona have won five out of five matches in La Liga and kept a clean sheet in every one.
Their latest victory, a 2-0 home win over Real Sociedad, puts them within touching distance of winning the league in Luis Enrique's first season in charge.
Losers: Real Madrid's Slow Start and Wasted Chances Cost the Title
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Real Madrid already knew the task at hand before their own match, at home against Valencia. They made a terrible start to the game and found themselves with injuries, poor fortune, goals conceded and a missed penalty by the time the half-time whistle went.
Two goals down to Los Che at the break meant they had to give everything to try and turn the match around, and three efforts onto the woodwork were a sign that the chances were being created—but a missed Cristiano Ronaldo penalty and the heroics of La Liga's best goalkeeper, Diego Alves, meant Carlo Ancelotti's men simply couldn't find the three goals they needed.
The 2-2 draw all but ended Real's title hopes, meaning they've won just one Liga title in seven years now.
Winners: Villarreal and Atleti, Sealing European Spots
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Reigning champions Atletico Madrid haven't gone the distance this time around, but a 2-2 draw at Levante on Sunday guaranteed them a top-four finish for a third consecutive season. Atleti still need one more win from their final two games to be assured of third place and the group-stage slot that would bring next term. They face Barcelona and Granada in their final fixtures.
Villarreal, meanwhile, will also definitely feature in Europe again next term after finally ending a winless streak of 11 games in their 1-0 triumph over Elche. That victory pushed them seven points clear of Malaga, who are in seventh, with only two games to play—so Europa League football is back on the cards for the Yellow Submarine.
Valencia and Sevilla are still fighting it out for fourth and fifth, Champions League and Europa League places respectively, though both could make it if Los Che take fourth and Sevilla win the Europa League this season.
Losers: Eibar and Granada on Head to Head
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The key results down at the bottom during Week 36 saw Granada beat Cordoba 2-0, Eibar suffer a home defeat by the same scoreline against Espanyol and Deportivo La Coruna take a last-minute point at Athletic Bilbao, drawing 1-1.
Those results mean—Cordoba were already down, in 20th—the 19th-, 18th- and 17th-placed teams are all level on 31 points, with Almeria just a single point ahead in 16th.
In La Liga, it's head-to-head that counts as the divider when teams are level on points, not goal difference, which means in the three-way tussle between Depor, Granada and Eibar, it is the latter two sides that are worse off.
Depor are currently safe, with Eibar in 19th and Granada, who have now won two in a row, in 18th.
Winners: Levante and Deportivo La Coruna in the Drop-Zone Battle
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Levante's 2-2 draw against Atletico Madrid, meanwhile, saw them move onto 36 points—meaning they are all but safe, unless three of the four sides below them record perfect ends to the season. Just one loss in the last five has pushed Levante to the brink of safety, with the goals of Kalu Uche and David Barral proving pivotal since January.
Deportivo are also safe as things stand, with the aforementioned three-way head-to-head working in their favour. Bizarrely, they would be better off not getting another point at all than winning more points and ending up level with only Granada. In that case, the Andalusian side have the better direct head-to-head record and would jump above Depor—who only hold the edge when results against Eibar are factored in as well.
Depor face Levante at the Riazor next time out.
Losers: Everybody, If the Planned Strike Action Goes Ahead
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The threat of the Spanish Liga season ending two weeks early is very real right now.
Spanish players union chief Luis Rubiales called a strike, per ESPN FC, in response to perceived government interference over the new television-rights deal.
Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti is optimistic that league play will resume, as well as the Copa del Rey final, reported by Sky Sports. It would be a farcical state of affairs if the Primera Liga ended two weeks early and teams—not to mention players, fans, ground staff, physios, contracted outside help and many more besides—were adversely affected by relegation or failure to net silverware because of industrial action.
Most remain hopeful that the season will finish as normal, exactly as it should.
