We are now halfway through in the best league in the world, and there has been many positive, but also many negatives surprises.
Before this season «everyone» thought Real Madrid was going to walk away from this league, and win easily. 17th of January Real Madrid is now more close to relegation than Barcelona at the top. It’s very hard to explain this, but the form Cristiano has shown, Zidane and the strange second halves is the biggest reasons imo. Last year Cristiano would have scored the chances he has had this season, and Real Madrid would have won the tough matches, but instead they have got a draw, or even a loss. This summer will be very important for Florentino Pérez if they want to close the gap to Barcelona, and maybe Zinedine Zidane will be gone then.
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At the top of the table we find Barcelona who has had a very impressive season. The first three months I felt they was a bit lucky, and not so good saved by especially Lionel Messi, Marc Andre ter-Stegen and Samuel Umtiti, but the past few months they have been absolutely great! Jordi Alba has been great, Vermaelen has impressed when Umtiti has been out, and the team looks very good organized by the coach Ernesto Valverde who deserves huge credit for his work! This summer Barcelona looked lost when they failed to get players like Di Maria, Coutinho, Iñigo Martínez, and used €40M on Paulinho from China (!). When you also remember the humiliation from the Supercopa, it’s very strange what has happened since then. The fact is that Paulinho has been great and have scored 8 goals this season which is twice as much as Cristiano Ronaldo! They have also now finally signed Phillipe Coutinho this transferwindow, and almost everything is looking good for the leaders. Bravo, Ernesto Valderde!
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Then you have the outsider, Atlético Madrid. The expectations wasn’t that high this year as they couldn’t register any new players this summer, but got Vitolo and Diego Costa ready from January. The only hope for the Rojiblancos was to take match by match (partido a partido) until the new signings could help them. They was able to keep their French-star Antoine Griezmann this summer, but he has been a bit of a disappointment this year. However Atleti has delievered a very good season, being nine points behind Barcelona, but placed second in the league. Now Diego Costa and Vitolo is ready, and the Atleti-fans will continue to dream in the rest of the season. Nothing is impossible, but it will be very hard to beat this Barcelona-team.
The title-contenders have surprised this season in a bad way, but also in a good direction like Barcelona as you can see. La Liga this season have also offered more surprises, and Valencia under the lead of Marcelino has been a huge positive surprise after many managers, and bad moments the past few years. Finally Valencia have got their manager, and has been great to watch this season with Simone Zaza and Guedes impressing a lot! They are now third at the table, and things are looking very good in the future finally for this promising Valencia-team thanks to Marcelino and a huge revelation.
Two of the upcoming teams this season (Girona and Getafe) have also impressed very much this season, and Girona under Pablo Machín in a 3-5-2-formation beating Real Madrid at home, and drawing Atlético Madrid the same place in their opening match in their first ever La Liga-season have been an absolute joy to watch. I will not be huge surprised if we see Machín in a bigger club soon, and if you like attacking football you will like this team placed as number 10 in their first ever season at the highest level.
Getafe with a more solid play, have delivered great performances almost the whole season. Home at the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez they have beaten Valencia, played good against both Real Madrid and Barcelona and taken 19 points from 10 games!
And of course you can’t name surprises without even mention Eibar, and this season their fairytale still continues. They are now fighting for Europa League-spots, and if you love football, you have to love Eibar.
On the other side you have teams like Real Sociedad, Málaga, Las Palmas and also a bit Espanyol and Celta Vigo who have disappointed a bit this season, but clearly just shows how tough it is in this league. La Real (Sociedad) started the season great with lovely attacking football, but suddenly it didn’t work and they are now number 15 in this league.
For Málaga the losses of Pablo Fornals, Sandro Ramirez and Camacho has been a huge factor for this team, and it will be very hard to stay up this season for the team placed in the bottom as number 19 with as many points as Las Palmas down at the last place. Las Palmas and Espanyol delivered a good season last year, and therefore the expectations is higher than how they have been. Las Palmas will be probably relegated having three managers already, and Espanyol under Quique Sanchez Flores has more potential I would say than they have shown this year. Finally Celta Vigo is a bit strange. They entertain you every week, and have a good team, but is so inconsistent meaning it will be very tough to fight for Europa League this year.
If you have watched a lot of La Liga this year you have seen a lot of great matches, and it’s very hard to forget matches like Betis - Valencia 6-3, Real Madrid - Valencia 2-2, Real Madrid - Betis 0-1, Real Sociedad - Valencia 2-3, Real Sociedad - Betis 4-4, and obviously many others like el clasico, the big matches from Girona, and their 6-0-win against Las Palmas. If you love La Liga, this has been a lovely season until now and you can hope it will continue for the rest of the season.
//Sportsradar