BEVERLY HILLS, May 01, (THEWILL) – In the top five of Europe’s biggest football leagues, being the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, French Ligue 1, Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga, no title race in the 2020/2021 season has an ending excitement as La Liga’s.
The chances have come for challengers of Atletico Madrid to seize control of the League from Diego Simeone’s side but city rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona, on the Catalan side, have fallen offensively short of the mark.
That is why by surviving a stoppage time penalty against relegation-battling Elche on Saturday, Atletico created a five-point gap at the top of La Liga with a much-needed 1-0 away win to ensure that the title fight between the top three sides will go to the very end.
Barca Manager, Ronald Koeman, confirmed this after his side’s disappointing home loss to Granada, which could have altered the standings temporarily. The Dutch Manager calculated the facts of Barca’s chances, noting that if La Blaugrana win the remaining matches of this campaign, the title will come to Catalonia. But the question is: Can they?
While they ponder that, things are looking up for Simeone’s side, who bettered their performance after that damaging defeat to Athletic Club. And, it can only improve with the return to the squad of prolific Uruguayan striker, Luis Suarez. He was ultimately denied goals by VAR but has four more matches to make up for lost time.
Simeone might still need the leaders to improve on their stamina as they approach the tight business end of the season, if their last minutes of the Elche match are anything to go by, because they allowed Elche back into the game. But for Lady Fortune smiling at Atletico, they could have very much lost two critical points at the very death of the game.
The Manager too will have to take a hard look at the mirror because he made a number of conservative changes that very nearly cost the team had Fidel converted that stoppage time penalty kick.
Fortunately, they survived and got that breathing space of five points at the top, for the moment. Koeman’s calculation aside, Atletico can be crowned champions for a second time in eight seasons if they can manage to not lose any of their remaining ties, which they can fancy, what with the return to form of Suarez.
For this to happen, however, Atletico must produce a winning display at the massive table-topping clash at Camp Nou next week, which may be the decider for where the trophy goes at the end because Barca can come up to within two points of Atleti if they beat Valencia on Sunday, in their extra match ahead of that clash.
There is no escaping the fact that Real can also shoot at the title as well. Zinedine Zidane’s side are not second on the table for nothing and a fired up Karim Benzema looks hungry enough to want to keep the side competitive as the season closes.
That is what makes this league the most interesting to watch this late in the season, with so much to play for and no way to know for certain how the season will end and where the trophy might end up.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
