MAY 13 ― While Manchester City were cantering to the Premier League title crown always seemed inevitable since Liverpool slipped up against Chelsea a couple of weeks ago, the La Liga title race was edging nervously towards a dramatic final day conclusion.
With just one game now remaining, the equation is simple: current leaders Atletico Madrid need to win or draw to secure their first championship since 1996, but second-placed Barcelona will take the crown with a victory.
And by a beautiful quirk of the fixture list, they just happen to be playing…each other.
What a final day it will be on Saturday evening: a head to head title decider at the Nou Camp ― the largest stadium in Europe ― between Atletico’s unfancied new kids on the block and Barca’s long-established but steadily declining aristocracy.
But it shouldn’t have come to this. Atletico should already be champions, having squandered a glorious opportunity to take the title on Sunday, when a home victory over Malaga would have been enough to keep Barca permanently out of reach.
Instead, they only drew 1-1, denied a dramatic winner in the fifth minute of injury time only by a brilliant save from Malaga’s Argentine goalkeeper Willy Caballero, who leapt to his left to somehow tip aside a shot from Atletico striker Adrian that looked destined to become a sensational title winner.
Caballero’s heroics have ensured Barcelona stay in the race, despite a disappointing goalless draw against Elche on Sunday which opened up the chance for Atletico to claim the silverware with a week to spare.
For all the undoubted talent they possess, Barcelona are desperately struggling at the moment and it’s really quite incredible they’re still in with a chance of winning La Liga.
The club has been surrounded by turmoil on and off the pitch for the majority of the season, with scandals over alleged tax evasion and the breaking of FIFA transfer regulations overshadowing the team’s desperate attempts to revive former glories under the leadership of manager Tata Martino, who has often seemed beleaguered by the challenge of attempting to get a group of players to perform like they did three years ago when it’s physically impossible for them to do so.
Times of significant change are around the corner at the Nou Camp, with long-standing goalkeeper Victor Valdes and veteran captain Carles Puyol certain to leave at the end of the season and very likely to be joined by another batch of departees as the club looks to rebuild for the future.
Manager Martino is one of those who will go, with former playing legend Luis Enrique ― currently in charge of Celta Vigo ― already lined up to replace him. Senior players like Dani Alves, Pedro, Alexis Sanchez, Javier Mascherano, Adriano, Cesc Fabregas and Alex Song could also be on their way and, with passing master Xavi a declining force at the age of 34, Barca will be left with just a small core of players including Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Neymar and Jordi Alba.
When you also consider the pressure being exerted upon club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who was appointed, unelected, earlier this year as a replacement Sandro Rosell following his enforced resignation, it’s clear that everything, both on and off the pitch, is uncertain at Barcelona right now.
No wonder, then, that such a chaotic environment has produced a team that looks anything but a “team” in the collective sense of the word. Whereas the great Barca sides of the last few years were perfectly choreographed and smoothly functioning units, the current approach seems to be more or less reduced to one simple strategy: give the ball to Messi and hope he scores.
The exact opposite is true of Atletico, who lack superstar names but have fuelled their run to the brink of glory with a relentless team ethic and a solid structure whereby everybody knows their role and the total adds up to far more than the sum of the individual parts.
Will they be good enough to get over the line? A draw against a horribly out of touch Barcelona is all they need, and their defensive solidity could well be enough to guide them to glory. But with Messi on the pitch ― even though he’s currently operating well below his best ― anything is possible for Barca.
Whatever happens next Saturday at the Nou Camp, it will be an occasion of rare sporting drama ― a nine-month season of 20 teams, each playing 38 games, reduced to ninety minutes of action.
It will be the first time since 1951 that the Spanish title has been decided on the final day with a head to head meeting between the top two, and I’m struggling to recall many other precedents in other leagues either.
The most famous, certainly in recent years, came in 1989 when Liverpool hosted Arsenal at Anfield, with the visiting Gunners needing a two-goal victory to take the trophy away from the Reds.
Memorably, they did just that in the most dramatic possible circumstances as midfielder Michael Thomas ― accompanied by TV commentator Brian Moore’s immortal line: “It’s up for grabs now!” ― raced through Liverpool’s defence to score the title winner in the final seconds of injury time.
It’s at moments like that ― and like Caballero’s astonishing save from Adrian on Sunday ― where sport exceeds anything on offer from theatre or movies. Spontaneous, unscripted and real…even Quentin Tarantino never comes close to anything like this.
For Atletico, though, there will always be the lingering regret: what if we’d done it a week earlier? If they lose at Barcelona on Saturday, it’s a question that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
