Barça Double Up the Bet

Round 28 of Liga was played this weekend with a curious reflection of what the whole tournament has been. Real Madrid won their game at home against Almeria which will be remembered more for the tribute to Hugo Sanchez’s coming back to Madrid than for the game itself. Real didn’t play good at all but they were highly effective when it came down to what really matters…scoring. Huntelaar is right now the striker they missed after the injury of Van Nistelroy, Lass has become the chief of the midfield and Juande Ramos has figured out a way to make this broken machine work.

Barça Doubles Up. Before the initial whistle at Nou Camp Guardiola’s men knew that Real Madrid had won against a non-threatening Almeria 3 goals to 0; once again Real Madrid was at 3 points watching their TVs in the locker room waiting to see if the pressure would manifest in Barcelona. Instead, they had to see how Barça massacred Malaga in less than 30 minutes. What had been catalogued as an “interesting” match up between Malaga (the revelation team of this season) and Barça (the most dominating team) ended up being a dominance display by the Catalans. Xavi and Iniesta commanded the midfield as they wanted to; and together make this team play at the rhythm they wanted. Henry is at his best once again and is the King Midas of the team as everything he touches becomes gold; and Eto’o is back on the hunt for the pichichi trophy (Spain’s top scorer). With this result Barcelona not only matched the 3 goals scored by Madrid but also doubled them up to show how superior they are.

Injuries Ruin The Show. Unfortunately for Barça this show did not have the perfect happy ending that it deserved. Their three main pillars in the midfield ended the game injured. Toure Yaya couldn’t last more than 25 minutes and abandoned the field with a torn muscle that will have him apart from the fields for at least 15 days. Iniesta had the exact same injury and will miss about the same time; lastly, Xavi ended up with a sore heel but in his case it shouldn’t prevent him to play in the next round of la Liga. The only “good” thing about these injuries is the timing; next weekend there are international world cup qualifying matches so this players would have to miss only one round as they are all expected to be recovered to face Bayern Munich on the 8th of April.

Numbers of Champions. Something has been said quite a lot in Spanish sport articles this past week about how people should give Madrid more credit for still being competing. With Barcelona’s same numbers Deportivo La Coruna conquered the title in the season 99/00. Real Madrid has not given up and they see the 6 points difference somewhat possible; especially considering the fact that they have to play Barcelona at their home stadium in round 34. However, if we look at the stats Barcelona deserves to win this title; their three main strikers accumulate a total of 57 goals and the team in general add up to 84; if they keep going this way they’d be braking all time record of la Liga held by Real Madrid with 107 goals in one season. The turning point of this tournament is going to be in two weeks when they have to “plug” themselves in very fast and keep adding and when Barça starts playing champions league. If they keep adding 3 points every week then this league will be over soon.