La Liga Hangover: Contrasting Barcelona, Real Madrid Form Heading for El Clasico
Welcome to La Liga Hangover, a weekly column running throughout the season in which we take a light-hearted, though in-depth, look at the key stories and talking points from Spanish football's top flight's most recent weekend of action. With a focus on the biggest teams, such as Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and a worthwhile nod toward the rest, we take a look at how the league is shaping up each week and what to look out for going forward.
El Clasico on the Horizon
International week! Oh, joy unbounded. Like an exercise in pulling teeth for fun, domestic football takes another break in Spain as players prepare to jet off around the globe for international friendlies and, in a few cases, Euro 2016 play-offs.
TOP NEWS
Madrid Fines Players $590K 😲
'Mbappé Out' Petition Gaining Steam 😳
Star-Studded World Cup Ad 🤩
The latter should just about see us through to the resumption of La Liga on Nov. 21 without feeling like Tom Hanks' character in Cast Away when his ball, "Wilson," floats off in the other direction, simply because of the particular light at the end of this upcoming tunnel: El Clasico.
The first Real Madrid versus Barcelona fixture of the 2015-16 season could be a pivotal one in establishing the first dominance of the season in terms of league points—and the two teams couldn't look more different heading into the game.
Real Madrid's performance at Sevilla on Sunday was symptomatic of their season as a whole. Rafa Benitez's team started well, played some exceptional football, took a deserved lead and could have been several goals clear. Then they collapsed. Sevilla's growing confidence and influence eroded the control Real had established, both in pitch territory and in the scoreline, and the second half only looked like it would head one way—thus ended La Liga's last remaining unbeaten record this season.
Star names for Real are, for different reasons, anonymous or disappointing at present.
Karim Benzema is still injured and under police investigation for a matter involving international team-mate Mathieu Valbuena, Gareth Bale has been out injured, James Rodriguez has only just returned and Cristiano Ronaldo has had simply no impact.
Starting games, scoring in three consecutive Liga matches and being one of La Liga's top scorers gives the impression on the surface that all is normal with the Portuguese forward, but the reality is far from it. He isn't contributing in the buildup, his movement is lacking, his end product is way below its normal standard and there is very little danger or presence about his play compared to his usual standards.
Contrast that with Barcelona, who have the total opposite situation. Real have Ronaldo in but the other two starting forwards out; Barca have Lionel Messi out but the other two starting forwards fit—and very much firing.
Neymar and Luis Suarez.
Thus reads the scorers list for the Catalan club in La Liga since late September; nine goals for the Brazilian and eight for the Uruguayan while Lionel Messi has sat out with injury without being missed in the slightest.
Villarreal boss Marcelino named Neymar the "most decisive player in the league right now," per Marca, after watching him score twice in Barca's 3-0 home win over his team on Sunday.
It's a fair label given the Barcelona No. 11's penchant for creating as much as finishing chances of late, and with those two in such scintillating form, even with Real being at home in El Clasico, the early indications have to point to Barcelona at least maintaining their three-point advantage at the top of the table after the game.
Jornada 11 Results
Las Palmas 2-0 Real Sociedad
Celta Vigo 1-5 Valencia
Levante 1-1 Deportivo La Coruna
Eibar 3-1 Getafe
Rayo Vallecano 2-1 Granada
Malaga 0-1 Real Betis
Athletic Club 2-1 Espanyol
Barcelona 3-0 Villarreal
Atletico Madrid 1-0 Sporting Gijon
Sevilla 3-2 Real Madrid
La Seleccion
Vicente del Bosque and his Spain side face England and Belgium in friendlies during the international break. There are a number of changes to the previous squad, including recalls for fit-again Koke and Andres Iniesta.
"OFICIAL | Lista de la @SeFutbol para medirse a @england y @BelRedDevils / Spain's call up pic.twitter.com/raZ0cWGEyh
— Selección Española (@SeFutbol) November 6, 2015"
Since the original announcement, injuries have meant Nacho of Real Madrid and Oscar de Marcos of Athletic Club have also been called up, replacing Sergio Ramos and Juanfran.
While there can't usually be too many complaints about who does make the Spain squad, questions can certainly be asked about why others haven't; Sergi Roberto of Barcelona has been one of La Liga's best and most consistent players this term but doesn't get a look-in. The same can also be said of Dani Parejo of Valencia for the past two years.
Juan Bernat (Bayern Munich), Xabier Etxeita (Athletic), Bruno Soriano (Villarreal), Inigo Martinez (Real Sociedad) and one or two others must be wondering if there is anything they can do to force themselves in on a regular basis—or at all.
Goal of the Weekend
We were truly spoiled in La Liga this weekend with three strikes of genuine world-class quality to savour. Neymar tops the polls ahead of Inaki Williams and Sergio Ramos.
"Who saw Neymar's second goal for Barcelona against Villarreal last night? They are not missing Messi at the... https://t.co/QehJJy94Wc
— Kick Off (@KickOffMagazine) November 9, 2015"
Runner-Up Edition
"El GOLAZO de Iñaki Williams para el #AthleticClub. https://t.co/VgWsjVkpRT
— Deporte Mundial (@FMundofutbol16) November 8, 2015"
"Double tap for this amazing goal of Sergio Ramos 🔥 dt: footy madrid #feelthefutbol (Vine by feel the futbol) https://t.co/CrI1gZ4EtD
— Ян7⃣ (@KetovYan) November 9, 2015"
Points of Authority
- We pointed out in the Ultimate Guide on Friday that a loss for Real Sociedad against struggling Las Palmas would probably mean the end for David Moyes. La Real were a shambles in the 2-0 defeat and, as predicted, Moyes is on the verge of the sack on Monday morning, per Marca.
- That article also predicted home wins for Celta, Eibar, Athletic and Atletico and for Athletic's Inaki Williams to be the player to watch. Celta let us down, but we'll take the rest.
- Valencia gave a display of counter-attacking and clinical football at its most extreme; Celta dominated and looked by far the more dangerous in attack but left themselves horrendously exposed and open defensively. Los Che scored with their first two attacks of the game, added a third seconds after half-time and ended up heavy victors—with five goals from five shots on target, per WhoScored.com.
- Atletico Madrid got the points against Sporting Gijon, but it was hard work. There's a difference between passing the ball in the final third and actually having the creativity to break down a defence, and Atleti struggled with that again on Sunday, as well as having a finishing touch. Diego Simeone's men won the match in the 93rd minute.
- We're down to 16 outfield players in La Liga who have played every minute this season. Chief among them: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real), Diego Godin (Atleti) and Grzegorz Krychowiak (Sevilla). We also have Ander Capa (Eibar), Mario (Villarreal) and Ruben Castro (Betis).
Tactical Notes
- Real Madrid kept to a 4-3-3 with the return of Gareth Bale but used the Welshman initially as the main centre-forward, with Isco and Cristiano Ronaldo rotating positions with him. It's not hugely dissimilar to how Real started the season in terms of movement, but they still badly miss the movement (and finishing) of Karim Benzema.
- Keeping with Real, Danilo at right-back is a tactical fit almost to perfection—when they dominate. His powerful surging runs down the flank give an overlap, a crossing option on the run and the safety in knowledge that he can backtrack at pace. Defending consistently is a different matter, though, and he struggled hugely against Sevilla, especially with Isco offering zero protection in front.
- Barcelona's starting XI against Villarreal was their likely XI for El Clasico (barring injuries on international duty) with the exception of Javier Mascherano returning in place of Jeremy Mathieu. Injuries in midfield mean rotation isn't an option, so Munir has probably done enough in his past two games to warrant starting from the right. He'll have to work hard defensively if Marcelo returns, but going the other way he can still contribute if Real dare to ignore him in favour of the other two.
- Sevilla once again showed their strengths and tendencies, with the left flank a huge tactical bonus. Left-back and left midfield dovetail nicely in both halves, both can overlap or underlap each other and deliver pinpoint crosses. Get the delivery right, and at least one of their three usual strikers can find an end product at some point in any match.
Good Week, Bad Week
The Good
The aforementioned left side of Sevilla is comprised of Benoit Tremoulinas and Yevhen Konoplyanka. The latter in particular was unstoppable against Real, and his recent form has been exceptional—raising the question (as we did previously in this column) of why he wasn't in the team far earlier this season.
Promoted goalkeepers, take a bow. Javi Varas is a decent shot-stopper if somewhat unreliable elsewhere in his game. But he kept a clean sheet in Las Palmas' 2-0 win over Real Sociedad on Friday. Antonio Adan is a fine all-rounder, certainly Liga quality, and he kept a clean sheet for Real Betis in their 1-0 victory. Ivan Cuellar, our goalkeeper in the team of the week for Jornada 10 and a contender again this time around, came within 70 seconds of a clean sheet at Atletico Madrid after making several excellent saves for Sporting.
Athletic Club's resurgence of late means they are now the team with the best unbeaten streak in La Liga; with four wins and two draws in their last six, they outshine Atletico (five without defeat) and Barcelona (four).
Twelve players have scored six or more in La Liga this season—eight of them are Spanish. Imanol Agirretxe (Real Sociedad) and Javi Guerra (Rayo) are top of that pile with eight each.
The Bad
The body language and lack of effort, trust or belief on the part of the Real Madrid attackers, even with 10 minutes or so still to play at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, was not acceptable.
Malaga once again put in a reasonably good all-round performance at the weekend and once again failed to score, losing 1-0. They have the fourth-best defence in La Liga, conceding just nine goals in 11 games—but they have only scored five in that time. If 12 individuals have scored six or more already it's not hard to see where the team's problem is.
The international break is depriving us of Liga action. Again. Ugh.
