There were no dramatic last day twists. Malaga may have beaten Barcelona at home, and they have been in fine form under new manager Michel, but while they gave it their all when they had nothing left to play for they could not come close to beating Real Madrid in the final round of Spain’s 38 league matches.
Madrid needed a point; instead they got a win to lift their record 33rd Primera Liga title. Barcelona won, too, after coming from 2-0 down at home to Eibar to win 4-2, but they were chasing an improbable title. Barca only led La Liga after one of the 38 rounds, the first. They were second in the league in 28 of the 38 rounds including the last 18.
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Barca scored 10 more goals than Madrid with an incredible 116 from 38 games. Luis Enrique’s side also conceded four fewer goals than their great rivals and they also took four points off them, but only those holding the most extreme conspiracy theories that the league and officials favour Madrid think that Zinedine Zidane’s side did not deserve to be crowned champions of Spain for the first time since 2012.
Zidane described the title win as “the greatest day in all of my professional career”. Better even than his accomplishments as a one of the greatest players in the world, better than winning the Uefa Champions League last season. The latter is harder to win than La Liga, but Zidane inherited a side halfway through that 2015/16 Champions League run. This season, everything has been of his own doing. He set out to win the league, a competition which Barcelona have dominated since 2004, and he achieved that aim.
Perhaps because of a Fifa-imposed transfer ban, Madrid enjoyed a rare stability among their playing staff. They used a core of highly talented players and a squad packed with depth meaning that they could overcome the injuries which inevitably came with playing so many games.
Madrid showed their intent from the first game, beating a very good Real Sociedad 3-0 away. That Basque team would eventually finish the season sixth, pipping their great rivals Athletic Bilbao to a European spot in the 94th minute of their final game with a 2-2 draw at Celta Vigo.
Madrid did not lose a league match until the end of February, a 2-1 defeat at Valencia. They did not lose a single Champions League game until the semi-final second leg at Atletico, but they had already secured the first leg 3-0. Along the way, they had the strength to win the European Super Cup in Norway in August and the Fifa Club World Cup in Japan in December. While other managers moaned about too many fixtures, Madrid steamrollered their way through a season where they played more games than anyone.
That the league went to the final day of the season showed how hard Barcelona pushed them, but Madrid always held the advantage because of their superior away form. They won 15 of their 19 games on the road, by far the best record in La Liga. Barcelona, in contrast, lost at 16th-place Deportivo La Coruna, 13th-place Celta and 11th-place Malaga. Barca’s form against the best teams was better than Madrid’s, yet their lack of consistency against lesser lights cost them another league title.
Zidane deserves immense credit for making the right selections and for his side playing entertaining football. He coped without the frequently absent Gareth Bale, he changed the team’s formation for individual games and was not afraid to ring the changes. He played weaker sides at lower clubs, especially away from home, but Madrid’s so-called weaker side – considering a player of James Rodriguez’s quality is classed as a reserve – won at Granada, Leganes, Eibar, Sporting Gijon and Deportivo.
His squad always had more balance than Barcelona’s and he kept fringe players motivated enough to win games when they were picked. Zidane passed on all the credit to his players, but he deserves more praise than any of them. He now hopes that they will become the first team in the Champions League era to retain the trophy.
Luis Enrique can still bow out a winner at Barcelona
Saturday's Copa del Rey final between holders Barcelona and Alaves will be an evening of goodbyes. It will be Luis Enrique's final game after three largely glorious years as Barcelona manager. His side have won their past seven matches in the league, including that dramatic fightback against Eibar last weekend, but it was not enough to secure the title. As the headline on the front page of Monday's edition of the Catalan daily Sport said under a picture of Lionel Messi and Neymar putting their heads in their hands: "Oh, No!"
Enrique, 47, remains an ultra-fit athlete who cycles and runs, but he looks drained compared to when he took the job three years ago. As one of his predecessors Pep Guardiola will attest, managing Barcelona takes its toll on even the largest reserves of energy and, as Enrique admitted on Monday, his team were not consistent enough to win the league.
Barca will name Enrique’s replacement on May 29 and it is widely expected to be Athletic Bilbao’s Ernesto Valverde, but there is still the significant matter of the cup final before then.
Enrique will leave with the respect of all Barca fans intact after delivering a treble in his first season, a double in his second and, they hope, a Copa del Rey in his third.
For Alaves, it is a first domestic cup final for a club who have never won a trophy. Promoted last season, they have finished a highly creditable ninth in the league table. Manuel Pellegrino’s side were the only team to win at Camp Nou this season, though they were hammered 6-0 when the Catalans visited in February.
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It is the final game at Atletico Madrid’s Vicente Calderon, too. The old stadium on the banks of the River Manzanares has long showed its age, but it is still home to Atletico Madrid, a venue which has one of the best atmospheres in Spain, in spite of three quarters of the stadium being open to the elements.
Atletico said their goodbyes at the weekend when they beat Athletic Bilbao 3-1 to finish the season third, 12 points behind Barca and 15 behind their neighbours. Manager Diego Simeone confirmed that he is going to stay on and see the club through to their move to their new 70,000-seater home by Madrid’s Barajas airport, but his biggest star, Antoine Griezmann, is not expected to stay.
Atletico will insist on the payment of his €100 million (Dh413m) release clause, which would make him the second most expensive footballer on the planet behind his compatriot Paul Pogba. Griezmann might not play at the Calderon again, but Barca and Alaves will and hopefully give the old venue one last great moment to remember.
Player of the week
Eibar’s Takashi Inui became the first Japanese player to score at Camp Nou when his seventh-minute strike put his team ahead on Sunday. His reflexes were so quick that Marc Andre ter Stegen in the Barcelona goal had little chance of saving it. Inui then put his team 2-0 up after 61 minutes with another spectacular strike. Eibar would go on to conceded four, but Inui and his teammates were superb in defeat.
Game of the week
With La Liga finished, attention switched not only to the cup final, but the second division and lower league play-offs. Girona, favourites for a first promotion to the top flight, are wobbling and dropping points. Girona have a five-point cushion over third-place Getafe, but Sunday’s Catalan derby at Ginmnastic Tarragona, who are fighting to stay up, will be tough.
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