State of the Liga Address

By: Isaiah | April 15th, 2008

We have what amounts to a minibreak in Barcelona’s schedule as we wait for Espanyol’s arrival at the Camp Nou on Saturday (moved up from Sunday, FYI, due to the demands of the upcoming Champions League semifinal with ManU), so I thought I’d do a full league breakdown of where things stand with 6 matches remaining.

Let’s go ahead and start off at the top, where Barcelona currently lies. It’s not exactly a dogfight for first, but someone’s going to have to take it and currently Real Madrid are in the top spot, 9 points up on Barcelona and 10 points up on Villarreal. The fourth Champions League spot is currently held by Atlético Madrid, 5 points behind Villarreal and only 1 point ahead of Racing Santander and 3 points ahead of Sevilla. That rounds out the UEFA Cup spots, after which there is a 6 point drop to Almeria in 7th. We can really discount them from European competition, I think, as you’ll see from the calculations/random guesses below.

First, the Championship: Real Madrid is obviously in a strong position with 6 games left, but one of those is against Barcelona. If RM wins that match, the season is over; if they lose, however, the league could be blown wide open. Here is a comparison of the upcoming games (current table positions in parentheses) for the top 3:

Real Madrid: @Racing Santander(5), Athletic Bilbao(10), @Osasuna(14), Barcelona(2), @Real Zaragoza(18), Levante(20)
Barcelona: Espanyol(8), @Depor(9), Valencia(16), @Real Madrid(1), Mallorca(11), @Murcia(19)
Villarreal: Valladolid(15), @Real Betis(13), Getafe(12), @Recre Huelva(17), Espanyol(8), @Depor(9)

These are pretty comparable season-ending schedules and I think it would be a mistake to attempt to assign a particular team as having either an easier or harder schedule from here on out. Doing so would open many doors that I think need opening at this point. The games that are left are the games that are left and you have to win them in order to get the title. What Real gains in visiting Zaragoza and then hosting Levante to end the season it loses in visiting Racing this weekend; Barcelona has a pretty solid run of mid-table games and then @Murcia, so it’s all the same, really. If anything, Villarreal’s schedule is harder simply because the worst team they play is Recre, who just drew with Barcelona.*

This weekend will, I believe, define the title race as either open or over. If Barcelona can get 3 points from free-falling Espanyol and Racing can turn in a performance worthy of a 5th placed team hosting a 1st placed team, I think we’ll be at 6 points come Monday. If what Kevin says in his previous post is anywhere near true, we’ll show up like lions rather than the kittens we’ve been recently. Despite Espanyol’s recent form, they’re no rollovers in a derby — regular old league form has nothing to do with derby form, after all — so it’ll have to be guns blazing for 90 minutes to get those 3 points.

So the math up at the very top is pretty simple, really, but once you start to go down in the standings just a little bit, you find yourself in the murky world of point counting. Starting with Atletico and ending with Sevilla, we have 3 teams with everything to gain and everything to lose, which in a sense means nothing to lose. Wait, how does that work…logicmeter just blew up…

Atleti at 54 points, Racing at 53 points, Sevilla at 51, in case you lost track since the second paragraph. Or hadn’t do the math required of you in said paragraph.

Atleti: Real Betis(13), @Getafe(12), Recre Huelva(17), @Espanyol(8), Depor(9), @Valencia(16)
Racing: Real Madrid(1), @Mallorca(11), Murcia(19), Sevilla(6), @Athletic(10), Osasuna(14)
Sevilla: Almeria(7), @Murcia(19), Valladolid(15), @Racing(5), @Real Betis(13), Athletic(10)

Based on this** it would seem that Atleti would make the CL while Racing would drop to 6th. However, one must consider in the Atleti-choke factor, which is absurdly high at all times on the backstretch. But will this be the year that Atleti retain their composure and end up with a CL berth? Despite Kun Aguero’s obvious talents (and really the obvious talents of the rest of the squad), I think that the @Getafe match will be their undoing. The winner of the Sevilla@Racing goes on to play in the CL. Playing teams flirting with relegation at this time of the year is not necessarily the best for a midtable club — after all, if you are to pit Valencia needing a win to stay up against an Atleti team needing a draw or better get into the CL or merely the UEFA Cup, you know that Valencia is going to win. History and David Villa are on the side of the Orangemen. At least so says I. Because I think Sevilla is a better team than Racing, I’m going to say that Sevilla comes out on top of all this and eeks back into the CL by 1 point. That’s an official predicition. If I win, I get a free backrub from the more attractive members of our posting crew. If I’m wrong, I swear I’ll drink a beer for every point I’m wrong by. By which I’m wrong. Dammit I hate English.

I’m going to skip down to Osasuna in 14th now, just because I think all the other clubs are safe, even Real Betis, who have a pretty hardass schedule to close things out.*** So I guess I just skipped down to them, didn’t I? Whatever.

The bottom of the barrel looks like this:

14. Osasuna 40pts
15. Valladolid 39pts
16. Valencia 39pts
17. Recre Huelva 37pts
18. Real Zaragoza 34pts
19. Murcia 29pts
20. Levante 22pts

So Levante is out barring an absolutely stunning miracle in which they go 6-0-0 over the last month and half, garnering all 18 possible points, and shooting to 40pts; not only that, though, Murcia, Zaragoza, and Huelva all fail to get more than 2 points in that same time period. And the Levante ship is righted! So…Levante is out.

I’m also going to say that Murcia is gone because they’ll get close to holding up their end of the bargain in the Levante Miracle Scenario (LMS). They’ll lose at home to Mallora and Sevilla, then go on the road to lose to Racing Santander, eek out a draw or maybe even a win while hosting Athletic and then the same in visiting Osasuna, but as their finale, they’re going down against Barcelona (who will win the title!). So much for the LMS…

That leaves but one relegation spot open. Some of Los Che must be getting a bit frantic right now, considering their current league form (though right now they’re probably freaking a bit more about the Copa del Rey final tomorrow). Perhaps they have reason to worry, with this ahead of them:

@Athletic(10), Osasuna(14), @Barcelona(2), Real Zaragoza(18), @Levante(20), Atleti(4)

However, I think history is on their side and they’ll get out of it. It doesn’t hurt at all that they’re going to play Levante (3 free points since it’s away from home) and I do think that this Copa game will go in their favor (again not at home), meaning they’ll be able to get some momentum heading back into the league. It’s do or die for them, but for real (rather than for fake?), so I think they’ll respond and win a couple of games here. They’ll probably lose at Camp Nou, but they’ll at least take valuable points from Athletic and Osasuna. Perhaps that’s just me looking at some of their lineup (Silva, Villa, Jaoquin, Vicente, Morientes, Banega) and being unable to come up with reasons why they’re in 16th.

My pick to go down along with Murcia and Levante is…oh man, I just put myself on the spot. I don’t know! It’s so tough. I’m debating between Valladolid and Recre Huelva, but…but…but they play each other on the last day of the season! Oh man, what drama! I do think that those are the weakest of the teams not currently in the relegation zone and are actually weaker, in my opinion, than stuttering Zaragoza. Obviously this isn’t the time of the year to have engine trouble, but with Zaragoza hosting Huelva this Saturday, we should see some serious fireworks and a Zaragoza win, vaulting them even with Huelva on points. Then they’ll collect a few points from their remaining opponents and will stay up by a point or two. Phew if you’re a Zaragoza fan and Dog Spammit if you’re Huelva fan.

Off to the pichichi now:

1. Luis Fabiano (Sevilla) 23goals
2. Dani Guiza (Mallorca) 18goals
3. Raul (Real Madrid) 16goals.

And so it’ll be Luis Fabiano, methinks. Guess who is tied for 5th, though? That’s right, Samuuu with 14 in 14 games. How about that for stats? Of course, Luis Fabiano has made 25 appearances, so he’s right on track with that…And by the way, Guiza hasn’t scored a single one of his goals from the spot, which is rather impressive. Of course, neither has Eto’o and Fabiano has only scored 2 from there, but whatever, it’s still impressive.

The Zamora trophy:

1. Casillas (Real Madrid): 0.94goals/game (30goals/32games)
2. Valdes (Barcelona): 0.97g/g (31g/32g)
3. Ricardo (Osasuna): 1.03g/g (32g/31g)

Until the Recre match, Valdes was on top and hopefully we’ll get that back soon. This makes me think about doing another statistical analysis of the defense…If we’re so glaringly bad, why is our keeper in the thick of things for the Zamora trophy? Is he that good or is the defense better than we all seem to think?

And you know I’ll be reporting on the Segunda the next time we have a break like this. Oh yes you do. Don’t lie to me. I know you know it.

By the way, if you’re wondering what happened to Almeria in all this (since I said I’d get to them), I discounted them because of how well Sevilla will do to end the season, starting off with a victory over Almeria and dooming them to 7th or worse. So there, I covered that, finally.

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*For you stats nerds, the average Real Madrid opponent remaining (including Barcelona) is ranked 11.5th in the table; the average Barcelona opponent remaining (including Real Madrid) is 10.67th in the table; and the average Villarreal opponent remaining is ranked 12.33th. So, statistically, Barcelona has the toughest schedule, but the schedules are so comparable that it’s hardly worth the time I just took to figure out those averages.

**Cause I’m a glutton for punishment, the average rank opponents remaining for the teams:
Atleti: 12.5
Racing: 10.17
Sevilla: 11.5

So Racing has the hardest schedule and Atleti the easiest. I’ll leave you to do that math to see who has the middle one. Any guesses?

***@Atleti(4), Villarreal(3), @Almeria(7), Valladoli(15), Sevilla(6), @Getafe(12)