Barcelona tapped Valladolid’s you-know-what at Camp Nou to win 4-0 and capture the Spanish Primera Division title with a record 99 points. Unfortuantely, Real Madrid didn’t make it interesting as they could only pull out a draw 1-1 against Malaga.
Barca was the favorite all year and even thought I predicted that Real Madrid would crumble they managed to keep it together until the last weekend of the season. I wouldn’t call this crumbling, but it still raises the same questions.
This was a choke job from Real Madrid–plain and simple. Sure, they needed Barca to lose, but the least they could have done was go out with a victory. Now everyone in Madrid is left to wonder if Real can somehow make this team any better next season–since they weren’t good enough this season.
That’s the problem with trying to pay for a title–if you lose you almost have nowhere to go. What other high-priced talent could they possibly sign that would make them competitive with Barca? Sure, they can sign people just like Barca will, but Barca is fine-tuning a winning machine–Madrid would be trying to give a very good team a makeover–a very good team that can’t win anything.
For my money, I was wrong about Madrid crumbling this season, but think crumbling was the right word if I had been talking longterm. Long term–the outflow of cash to not win anything might cripple this club for a decade when Benzema, Ronaldo, and their type move on.
Imagine how bad the morale will be when no one wants to come to Madrid anymore–because they can’t win and have no attractive talent to play with.
Barca is trending up and Madrid is trending flat. Everybody comes back to earth eventually, but Madrid will hit bottom first–and hardest.
Congrats Barca–you fought hard and earned this one.
