Title Race Is Wide Open In Spain

As things stand it is back to being a three horse race with both the Madrid giants; Real and Atletico back in contention...

- Himanshu Dhingra

For quite a while it looked as if the title race in Spain’s La Liga was a no betting scenario with Barcelona seemingly running away with the title like a team possessed. After losing to the Andalusian club Sevilla in October, Barcelona went on a 39 game unbeaten run in all competitions. The rivals were in a panic situation as Barcelona was making everyone look small in other competitions like Copa Del Rey and the UEFA Champions League.

Sport as they say doesn’t follow any script and this case is no different. This case is perhaps a little tragic, with almost everything going swimmingly well for the Catalan Giants. However, the news in the build up to the El Clasico broke that Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff had passed away at the age of 68 after losing his battle to lung cancer. Cruyff was a legend at Barcelona who had a profound impact on the club not only while playing but also while managing. He was the manager when Barcelona won the Champions League for the first time in 1992 and he was the one who brought the club’s philosophy into the play. The club was looking to provide an appropriate tribute to a legend and it looks that players may have taken their eye of the ball.

One could sense in the El Clasico that all was not well with the team and the team did not play at all well in the game and eventually lost to a 10 man Real Madrid despite having taken the lead through Gerard Pique. Even in the next La Liga game it was a poor show as Barcelona was undone by Basque club Real Sociedad which was treated with surprise. If this was not enough, they were hammered by Valencia, that too at Camp Nou which was shocking to say the least. They have restored some pride after winning against Deportivo La Coruna but still all is not well. The poor performances have not only been limited to the league itself. The reigning champions were dumped out of the Champions League by Atletico Madrid.