All eyes this weekend will be keenly focused on the crown jewel of the La Liga schedule, El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona. The game has plenty of storylines surrounding it. The possible return of Lionel Messi is the big one. Neymar’s scoring binge for Barca and Cristiano Ronaldo’s continued shouldering of all goal scoring responsibilities for Real Madrid are two others. If you’ve paid attention to the European game lately, you would know that the big boys are no longer sitting atop league tables unopposed anymore. This edition of El Clasico will have plenty of eyeballs on it, but that game alone is only a taste of a huge La Liga weekend ahead.
Like the majority of sports news outlets, we’ll of course start with Barcelona versus Real Madrid. The two teams in their usual spots atop La Liga play this Saturday for the 230th time competitively. They have two of the, if not THE, biggest stars in the game in Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The game also will feature their heir apparent in Neymar. It is also a chance for the team on top, Barcelona, to put some early distance between themselves and their rivals. The La Liga table at the moment sees Barca 3 points ahead of Los Blancos heading into Saturday’s game. A six point cushion is by no means a guarantee of a title in this day and age, but having two full wins over your closest competitor is never a bad thing. A win for either side would also give them a head to head win which is huge in La Liga. Although they were ahead of goal differential, head to head records are what got Eibar relegated last year. But we’ll get to Eibar in a bit, back to the title hunters.
Barcelona and Real Madrid are at the top of the league, as has been stated many times already, but unlike past years they have more than a few teams breathing down their necks. The main one is Atletico Madrid, the winners of La Liga in 2013-14. Atletico sits one point behind their Madrid neighbors entering the weekend and have done so even without playing their best football through 11 games. Diego Simeone’s men do boast the best defensive record (6 goals conceded) in La Liga. They’ll get a chance to work out their offensive kinks this week against Real Betis.
Betis is the epitome of a mid-table team. They don’t really score and they’re not horrid defensively. In essence, they are the worst team for the Atleti to have to face right now. Betis, especially at home, will hunker down once the first goal goes in. That will stymie Atletico’s creative forces who while talented have yet to gel. Atletico seems perplexed by their embarrassment of riches up front. They added Jackson Martinez and Luciano Vietto to a contingent of Antoine Griezmann, Fernando Torres, and Angel Correa. Recent Atletico clubs had just one man up top such going all the way back to Torres’ first stint with the club to most recently Diego Costa. For them to usurp either of the two top clubs, they’ll need to get three points at Betis.
The competition underneath the top three heats up this weekend as well. The biggest matchup in the top half of the table that isn’t El Clasico is Villarreal against Eibar. The fifth and sixth placed teams in La Liga at the moment play for a chance to move into a Champions League place. The two play on Sunday so they’ll know what they have to do beforehand because the two other teams that could take that final UCL spot play today. Those two teams are Valencia and Celta Vigo. Celta currently hold that fourth and final Champions League place. They play the late game today against Deportivo La Coruna. Valencia, currently just on the outside of the European picture, can jump right back into the thick of it against relegation fodder Las Palmas. Even eighth placed Athletic Bilbao can enter the fray with a win over Granada.
This weekend’s action has a huge effect on the chase for the La Liga crown. With international breaks gone until 2016, the Spanish football scene is going to get intense. El Clasico provides casual fans a reason to watch. But there is so much more bubbling just below that sparkling surface in Spain’s top flight. We’ll see how much of it bursts through the top this weekend.