Barça ends the first round with a five-point lead over Real Madrid
The blaugrana depend on themselves to be champions after four years
Barça settled on the sofa last night with the mobile in one hand and the remote control in the other. On TV, a Real Madrid-Valencia game in which the worst that could happen was finish the first half of LaLiga seeing the whites in the rear-view mirror with five points less. It is what ends the working day with the satisfaction of the duty fulfilled. Or a job well done, it doesn’t matter.
Xavi and company left the Benito Villamarín with three points which, added to those they already had, add up to a total of 50, 22 more than last season at this point. These are figures that allow us to face the remainder of the championship with optimism. Also with the utmost caution, but with very good sensations. Madrid’s victory against Che at the Bernabéu was as planned and means starting the second round with the same distance with which he reached the last day of the first round and which gave him the honorary title of winter champion.
maximum strength
Any help in the form of a stumbling block from those who fight for the title hand in hand with Barça is always welcome, but the blaugrana depend on themselves to be champions and they are showing a solidity that is beginning to remind us of times when the culé team dominated with iron hand the tournament of regularity.
Ter Stegen during the match against Betis at Benito Villamarín
| Javi Ferrandiz
Xavi Hernández’s men have only failed to add seven of the 57 points distributed over the first 19 days. They lost three of them, precisely, against Real Madrid in Chamartín and that continues to be the only defeat suffered by Barça so far in LaLiga. It is also the only setback for the team away from the Spotify Camp Nou, where, on the other hand, they have given up two draws, in the league debut against Rayo Vallecano and in the derby against Espanyol, a game remembered for the disastrous refereeing by Mateu Lahoz . Sixteen victories in nineteen games are enough reasons to dream big.
The what and the how
Barça is going at the pace of a champion and, although the scoring records can be improved because they have only scored 39 goals, numbers that are far from the club’s most prolific seasons, it makes up for it by conceding only seven goals. The enormous defensive solidity has been one of the best arguments so far in the championship.
And yet, the most celebrated thing in Barcelona is seeing how the team’s football maintains a clearly ascending line and the what, more and more, is accompanied by the how. The game that Xavi aspires to is permeating his footballers and allows happiness, for now, to be complete.