La Liga season review

In review: The 2019/20 LaLiga Santander season

And in the end, the race ends, the marathon reaches its finish line and the curtains close easily.  After 38 matchdays in La Liga, the final curtains were closed in style and left people wanting craving more action.The best league in the world for many fans finished on July 19, 2020 with emphatic wins, a close relegation battle and a surprising race for Europe. It is true, the title was sealed on the penultimate matchday, but the title race was exciting and the two clubs in it, Barcelona and Real Madrid, made the league enjoyable enough to keep both sets of fans watching the two clubs religiously. Los Blancos overcoming their rivals with a game to spare, ultimately finishing with 87 points  five more than FC Barcelona’s 82.The three-month hiatus of competition because of the coronavirus pandemic is the first event that springs to mind, but there was so much more.Barcelona were top of LaLiga Santander when Ernesto Valverde was sacked as head coach on January 13.The decision was made after the defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Supercopa de Espana, with Quique Setien coming in to replace him.Just not much from the season’s three most expensive signings, João Félix, Antoine Griezmann and Eden Hazard. And even less from Luka Jovic, the fourth. Talking of Europe, this year’s race was sensational, but after the COVID–19 outbreak, some teams lost pace in the race and fell off. So, in a deep review of this La Liga season, the following part will be a summary of the best and the worst of the 2019/20.

The sentencing of Catalan politicians caused tensions to rise so high in and around Barcelona that the first Clasico of the season was postponed.Real Madrid's trip to the Camp Nou on October 26 was pushed back until December 18 in an unprecedented move.

After beating Barcelona 2-0 in El Clasico in early March, Los Blancos appeared to be in the driving seat for this season’s league title. However, their 1-2 defeat at the hands of Real Betis gave the Blaugrana a two-point lead, which they couldn’t hold on to. Quique Setien’s men failed to overcome the likes of Sevilla, Celta Vigo and Atletico Madrid, games which cost them points and handed the advantage back to Real Madrid.For their part, Zinedine Zidane’s team embarked on a 10-game winning streak, often picking up points by narrow 1-0 victories. Despite claims of VAR coming to their rescue, the All Whites didn’t let their critics distract them one bit.For Real Madrid, this was their first title since 2016/17 and a record 34th in club history. It’ll have made Zinedine Zidane especially happy as the French coach has consistently spoken about how he believes LaLiga Santander is the most difficult league in the world and about how there is so much value in being the best team over a 38-match competition. As he said after mathematically securing the title: “the Champions League is the Champions League, but this title makes me happier because LaLiga is what it’s all about.”

 After all these years, we didn’t think Lionel Messi could do anything we haven’t seen from him before. And we were wrong.For the first time ever, the Argentina racked up over 20 goals AND over 20 assists in a LaLiga season. No player in Spain’s top flight even came close to his tally of 25 goals or his 21 assists.Now 33, even Messi’s heroics can’t make Barcelona the most feared team on the planet. But that doesn’t make his performances less impressive.This Barcelona team is old. Really old.Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez are 33 and were the only players to score more than nine LaLiga goals this season. In fact, only 29 of Barcelona’s 86 league goals in 2019/20 were scored by players under the age of 30 and nine of those were from 29-year-old Antoine Griezmann. Adding Miralem Pjanić, 30, for Arthur, 23, seems an odd deal from the outside.Where is the next generation? What will Barcelona look like two years from now?  If they’re not careful, this could just be the start of a long decline.

Atletico Madrid won seven of their 11 games after the league’s restart to rise up to third on the table, a far cry from the sixth place, where they were before the break. Sevilla FC love the Europa League and have won it more times than any other club in history (5). Even so, this season they’ve managed to displace Valencia – who’d finished fourth in the last two seasons – and nab the fourth and final Champions League spot for next season.In the first season back for sporting director Monchi and a debut season for coach Julen Lopetegui, they’ve ensured they’ll join Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid in UEFA’s elite competition in 2020/21.

Having won just five matches all season, Espanyol became the first team to get relegated from La Liga after securing European football the season before. They changed four coached throughout the campaign and will have to reinvent themselves in the second tier now. Elsewhere, Real Mallorca will also bid adieu to La Liga, after having secured promotion in the 2018-19 season. But they failed to make any sort of impact upon their return to top-flight. Leganes, meanwhile, became the third and final side to be relegated to the Segunda Division, having won just eight matches, and a staggering 12 draws, falling just one point short of safety. 

For the first time in their 89-year history, Granada have qualified for Europe and will now enter the second qualifying round of the Europa League. Their achievement becomes all the more impressive when taking into account the fact that they achieved promotion to La Liga in 2018-19 season itself, and finished higher than Osasuna this term, who had won the Segunda Division last season.

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Farewell Iker!

Iker Casillas : Boy with a dream

There are many ways to celebrate the career of Iker Casillas, who retired Tuesday aged 39, some 21 seasons after making his top-flight debut for Real Madrid at 18. The goalkeeper captained Spain to their first ever World Cup and won two European Championships and 167 caps along the way. He won five league titles, two Copa del Rey and three Champions League crowns for Real Madrid. Only one man has made more appearances for the club in its illustrious history. 

His fortune changed dramatically as a 16-year-old when he was summoned from the classroom to sit on the bench for Real Madrid, improved further when he replaced the injured César Sánchez during a Champions League final against Bayer Leverkusen and began bordering on the outrageous when he earned his place in Spain’s 2002 World Cup side.

At 20, Casillas is the goalkeeper of the first iteration of the Galacticos, with Luis Figo, Raul and Zinedine Zidane. The launch angle to his career is nearly vertical at that point and yet, in the second half of the 2001-02 season, the wheels come off. He has some poor performances, struggles in the way young keepers  do and is dropped in the spring. Suddenly, he is too small. Too young. Too attached to the club colors to be cool under pressure.

On the bench for the 2001-02 Champions League final in Glasgow, watching Real Madrid take a 2-1 lead over Bayer Leverkusen thanks to Zidane's epic long-range wonder goal. And then, with 22 minutes to go, Cesar Sanchez, who had supplanted him as Madrid's No. 1, falls hard on the Hampden turf and signals for a change. Casillas comes on and makes a string of stops, two of them spectacular kick-saves, to preserve the victory. A few months later he is again Madrid's starting keeper, a job he would retain for the next decade.

Fast-forward 10 years. It's the 2012-13 season, Jose Mourinho is in charge and the rivalry with Barcelona is as poisonous as ever. So too is the atmosphere at Real Madrid. Mourinho suspects there's a rat in the dressing room, airing the club's dirty laundry. As the club struggles, threatening to implode, fans are split between Mourinho-backers and Mourinho-haters. Casillas becomes a scapegoat, blamed for being the dressing room mole. He's dropped for backup Antonio Adan, and to reinforce the point, Mourinho buys another keeper, Diego Lopez, halfway through the season.

Perez unceremoniously shows Casillas the door. He's 34, by no means old for a keeper, but when you leave Real Madrid, especially when you've been there since the age of 9, the only way is down.There were rumours that Casillas would retire; instead, he signs for Porto as a free agent. A smaller league in Portugal, and less money, but a chance to play. And, more important, to get back up. He plays for four seasons, enduring both the thrills of another league title as well as a sustained period on the bench in his third year, followed by a return to the lineup. It's a microcosm of his career: another fall, another rise.

Casillas has not played since a heart attack in 2019 and in February announced his intention to run for president of the Spanish Football Federation before withdrawing his candidacy because of the coronavirus. Apparently determined to swap his uniform of garish short-sleeved shirt for a blazer, in a comical and slightly sad development he is reported to be in advanced talks regarding a return to Madrid to work as a special adviser to the president widely considered responsible for his ignominious exit.Announcing his retirement on Twitter, Casillas said: "The important thing is the path you travel and the people who accompany you, not the destination to which it takes you."I think I can say, without hesitation, that it has been the path and the dream destination."

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