Gerard Pique is spraying the champagne about. Not that Barcelona can celebrate too much. Their season isn’t over yet. They still have the Copa del Rey and Champions League finals to come. Are they going to win the Treble? It certainly looks like it. Thanks for reading and emailing. Night.
Barcelona’s players are in a huge huddle in the middle of the pitch. Finally they can celebrate. They’ve won the league with a game to spare. It’s not to be for Real Madrid. They did their bit, beating Espanyol 4-1, but it’s too little, too late. Lionel Messi scored the title-winning goal. What a player.
FULL-TIME: ATLETICO MADRID 0-1 BARCELONA! BARCELONA ARE THE CHAMPIONS!
It’s over! Barcelona have won La Liga! Phase one of their Treble mission is complete!
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90 min+3: Tempers are boiling over. Now Siqueira and Messi are booked.
90 min+2: Barcelona have a free-kick deep in Atletico territory. They’re almost there. The players in the dug-out are like coiled springs. They can hardly wait. Barcelona are wasting time now. They take their sweet time over the free-kick and Neymar is booked for timewasting. Diego Godin snaps. He would quite like to have a brawl with Neymar, who happily skips off into the distance while his team-mates keep Godin away from him.
90 min+1: Cristiano Ronaldo has scored a hat-trick. He’s absurd. It’s Espanyol 1-4 Real Madrid.
90 min: The free-kick looks like it’s made for the right foot of Neymar. But that fails to factor in the left foot of Messi. He curls the ball towards the bottom-left corner, but Oblak pushes it away. There will be three minutes of stoppage time.
89 min: A Barcelona counter ends with Gimenez bringing Neymar down 25 yards from goal. He’s booked. He completely missed the ball.
88 min: Bravo punches Koke’s corner away. That’s great goalkeeping. The ball is lobbed back into the area, but it ends up in Bravo’s grateful grasp. He clutches the ball like it’s an old friend.
87 min: Siqueira would like to see the title go down to the wire. His piledriver from 25 yards is destined for the top corner until Bravo tips it over the bar.
87 min: Rafinha Alcantara replaces Ivan Rakitic.
86 min: Siqueira drives to the byline on the left and hangs a cross to the far post. Mandzukic tees up Koke, but his shot is blocked. These are nervy moments.
85 min: Five minutes.
83 min: Cristiano Ronaldo has scored again. It’s Espanyol 1-3 Real Madrid. But it could all be in vain. Madrid still need a favour from Atletico.
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82 min: One legend replaces another for Barcelona. Xavi replaces Andres Iniesta. One is given a standing ovation by the entire stadium as he leaves the pitch, the other is given one as he enters it.
80 min: Jeremy Mathieu replaces Jordi Alba. Saul Niguez replaces Fernando Torres. Barcelona are 10 minutes plus stoppage time away from the title.
79 min: But wait! Real Madrid lead again! Marcelo has made it 2-1.
77 min: Pedro stings a shot inches past the left post from 20 yards. Barcelona still can’t find a clincher.
76 min: The Espanyol goal means that Barcelona would win the league even if Atletico equalise.
74 min: Espanyol have equalised against Real Madrid! A terrible mistake from Keylor Navas leads to a calamitous equaliser from Christian Stuani. Navas took too long to clear the ball, had his pocket picked and the ball ended up in the back of the Real Madrid net. Oh dear.
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72 min: Arda Turan knocks a shot over from 20 yards. It’s not over yet. That’s his final contribution. Mario Mandzukic is on in his place.
71 min: The Barcelona celebrations should be starting already, but this is a terrible miss from Neymar. Rakitic broke through the middle and located Messi on the right. He scampered inside, on to that left foot, and looked like he was on a one-man mission - but instead he decided to set up Neymar. He could see the whites of Jan Oblak’s eyes but he leant back and blasted the ball miles over the bar! What a miss.
69 min: Barcelona want this title wrapped up. The goal has freed their minds. They’ve loosened up. Messi dinks a pass to Iniesta on the left. He controls on his chest and looks for Neymar, whose flick flashes just past the near post.
67 min: Atletico replace Mario Suarez with Raul Garcia. By the way, that was Lionel Messi’s 54th goal of the season.
GOAL! Atletico Madrid 0-1 Barcelona (Messi, 65 min)
Cristiano Ronaldo asked the question. How’s this for an answer from Lionel Messi? It had to be him. The deadlock has been broken. At last. The tension has been blasted away and this is a wonderful goal from the best player in the world. Messi finally had a yard of space on the edge of the area. He assessed his options and then rolled a pass through to Pedro, who showed great composure to play it straight back to Messi. He took a touch, trained his sights on the bottom-left corner and picked his spot with a clinical low left-footed shot! This could be the goal that wins Barcelona the league. It had to be Messi.
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62 min: Barcelona look like they’re stepping it up, but Atletico’s workrate shows no sign of dropping.
59 min: Real Madrid have scored! Cristiano Ronaldo - who else? - has given them the lead against Espanyol and now Barcelona need a goal if they are going to finish this league tonight. They don’t look like they’re scoring at the moment.
58 min: It’s still Espanyol 0-0 Real Madrid.
56 min: Arda overcommits and sends Messi flying in the middle. He escapes without a booking.
55 min: Atletico take a free-kick quickly and Torres streams into the area, but he snatches at the shot and hits it straight at Bravo. Mascherano took a whack on the shin in his attempts to tackle Torres and will need some treatment.
54 min: Neymar crosses. Godin almost heads it out of Oblak’s hands. “Anyone else think that David De Gea’s injury today was a phantom knock developed to get home early and get his feet up for this and the Real game?” says Justin Kavanagh.
53 min: Koke is booked for a cynical grab of Messi’s shirt.
52 min: Diego Godin, the Atletico hero on this day last year, nuts a free header over the bar from the resulting corner.
51 min: Juanfran’s cross is headed behind by Pique. Torres was lurking.
49 min: Rakitic bursts through the middle, zigzagging away from his markers, but Pedro’s return ball is too strong. Atletico counter and bombard Barcelona in the air. There’s an appeal for a penalty when the ball drops and falls on Iniesta’s outstretched arm, before he falls to the floor after the ball is booted into his face. Oh dear. Eventually Griezmann shoots. Pique deflects it wide.
47 min: Rakitic’s corner is cleared as far as Pique, whose shot from 18 yards is deflected wide. Another corner. Atletico deal with it again.
46 min: Off we go again. Are Barcelona going to win the title tonight? We’ll know in 45 minutes. A win guarantees it. They want a win. Messi wins a corner on the left. “Enrique should get serious credit for the fact that not all of Alves’ crosses are any longer Bebesque,” says Philip Podolsky. “He’s been launching silly amounts of those in the last couple of seasons and it had to stop. Maybe has to do with Enrique’s having been a wonderful crosser of the ball with both his feet.”
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Half-time: Atletico Madrid 0-0 Barcelona
Barcelona are drawing, but so are Real Madrid. As it stands, Barcelona are 45 minutes from winning the league.
45 min: Alves spanks a wobbler towards the top from 30 yards. Oblak’s fingertips save the day for Atletico.
44 min: It would probably help Barcelona’s cause if Pedro had the ball less and Messi and Neymar had it more.
41 min: Pedro escapes down the right for the first time, reaching the byline, but his cutback is just behind Neymar and Messi in the six-yard box! Messi tries to salvage the situation and tee up Alba, but Juanfran produces a fine challenge and Atletico survive.
40 min: Atletico are so hard to break down. They work so hard. It’s intense.
38 min: Busquets has ... well, I’m not sure if you can necessarily call this a shot. Let’s call it a kick. Busquets does a kick from 25 yards, let’s say, and the ball wonks well wide of the target. Let us never speak of this again.
34 min: I’m not entirely sure what’s happened there. What I do know is that Barcelona have a free-kick. Messi takes it and decides to try and catch Oblak out by shooting when everyone was expecting a cross. The ball licks the top of the bar and flies over.
33 min: This is bizarre. Although Alves was booked for diving, Barcelona have been given a free-kick just outside the area on the right. Has the referee decided that it was a foul and a dive and acted accordingly? I’ve never seen that before. Godin has also been booked, it seems. Did the referee think that the foul took place outside the area, but that Alves then dived inside it in a bid to win a penalty?
31 min: Barcelona are furious. Dani Alves charges into the area, chasing a Pedro pass, and he has too much pace for Diego Godin, who has a little tug at his shirt. Alves tumbles, looking for a penalty, but the referee books him for diving. Barcelona are livid. I think Atletico have got away with one there.
29 min: Pedro is booked for leaving one on Gimenez.
28 min: Atletico win a slightly fortunate corner on the left. It looked like the final touch came off Siquiera. Koke’s corner is headed away at the near post, though. The game has become bitty in the past few minutes.
26 min: A lull.
24 min: It’s still goalless between Espanyol and Real Madrid. As it stands, Barcelona will win the league today.
22 min: Godin goes into the book for a hefty swipe at Messi. “Cosh is the hyperbolic cosine of a function,” says Django Charlwood. “\cosh x = \frac {e^x + e^{-x}} {2} = \frac {e^{2x} + 1} {2e^x} = \frac {1 + e^{-2x}} {2e^{-x}}.”
20 min: Messi shrugs off a challenge in the middle and Atletico are panicking. He’s off. There’s no stopping him, but Gimenez gets a crucial toe to Messi’s attempt to play in Pedro. The danger hasn’t passed yet, though. The ball is dinked into the area from the right. Messi throws himself at it and his goalbound header is blocked by Juanfran’s arm. It could be a penalty to Barcelona but the referee misses it. The ball squirts into the six-yard box and, finally, Atletico live on when Pedro prods it over the bar.
18 min: Neymar finds Messi 18 yards from goal. He scoops a left-footer over the bar.
16 min: Alves Bebes a cross out for a goal-kick.
14 min: Pedro hops in from the right and has a dig. His shot is blocked. Barcelona are settling down again.
13 min: What a pleasingly open game this is already! Dani Alves sweeps a cross into the area from the right and an unmarked Lionel Messi heads straight at Oblak from eight yards! Andy Carroll would have put that away.
12 min: Barcelona emerge from the cosh, as you always suspected they would, and Neymar and Iniesta freestyle Messi into a shooting position on the edge of the Atletico area. Atletico defenders lunge desperately at Messi in a bid to stop him, but it’s no good, it won’t do, he’s away - but he shoots straight at Oblak.
11 min: Barcelona are under the cosh. Speaking of which, can you be above the cosh? What is a cosh? And can you be under a cosh?
10 min: Bravo is forced to make another outstanding save from the resulting corner from Arda, but this effort from Griezmann wouldn’t have counted if it had gone in; the flag was up for offside.
9 min: Barcelona look a bit rattled now. Mascherano’s pass goes straight out of play. Arda Turan breaks down the right and crosses. Pique heads it behind for another corner.
7 min: But here come Atletico. Gabi chips a free-kick down the line and Alba is forced to put it behind for a corner by manic pressing from Koke. Pique heads the corner away but Atletico suddenly fancy this, Griezmann wriggling into the area and winning another corner on the left. And Atletico almost score! They’re such a threat from set-pieces! Koke sends the corner to the near post and it’s glanced on by Gimenez, whose header looks like it’s going to loop over Claudio Bravo, who reaches back and paws the ball away just in time.
6 min: Barcelona still have the ball.
5 min: Barcelona have the ball
4 min: Barcelona are on the front foot immediately. They win a corner on the right. They’ve got better at these this season. But Rakitic’s cross is hooked clear. “Suarez’s absence is, I think, a big minus for Barcelona (and for fans of the glorious game!),” says Ian Copestake. “When he went off at half-time in their last match Barcelona looked disjointed suddenly. The wee man adds such a lot of energy and mischief that without him even Messi and Neymar look like floundering mortals.”
A bit, but they did basically declare at half-time against Bayern.
2 min: Sergio Busquets is holding his face. That’s usually reason for suspicion, but he was on the receiving end of an accidental blow from Koke.
And we’re off! Atletico, kicking from left to right in the first half, kick off. Barcelona have the ball within 10 seconds.
The teams are out. Atletico are in their red and white stripes, Barcelona are in luminous yellow.
Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid will be delighted to see that Luis Suarez has been left out of the Barcelona side because of a hamstring strain. It’s on! Sort of. They’ve still got Messi and Neymar, while World Cup winner Pedro, a player who’s scored in a Champions League final, takes Suarez’s place. A blow, yes, but Barcelona can probably make do without him.
Team news
Atletico Madrid: Oblak; Juanfran, Jose Giménez, Godín, Siqueira; Gabi, Mario Suárez; Arda, Koke, Griezmann; Torres. Subs: Moya, Gamez, Miranda, Saul, Raul Garcia, Raul Gimenez, Mandzukic.
Barcelona: Bravo; Alves, Pique, Mascherano, Alba; Busquets, Rakitic, Iniesta; Pedro, Messi, Neymar. Subs: Ter Stegen, Xavi, Rafinha, Sergi Roberto, Adriano, Mathieu, Munir.
Preamble
Hello. Time really does fly. This time last year, Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid were writing themselves into the La Liga history books, confounding everyone’s expectations and then some by doing the unthinkable and breaking up the Barcelona and Real Madrid duopoly. Spain had not seen anything like it for years. No one gave Atletico a prayer at the start of the season but on 17 May 2014, they went to the Nou Camp and, against all the odds, willed themselves to the 1-1 draw that sealed their first title in 18 years. It was winner takes all. Barcelona would have won the league if they had won and everything was going their way when Alexis Sanchez gave them the lead in the first half, but Atletico refused to go away and Diego Godin’s equaliser catapulted them into ecstasy. They defended for their lives and even the Barcelona fans were sporting enough to recognise the magnitude of Atletico’s achievement.
It was a monumental triumph, arguably the greatest title win in any league in the modern era given the might of Atletico’s opponents and the financial clout that they enjoyed, but normal service has been restored this season. It was too much to ask for it to happen again. The superpowers did not take kindly to that level of impertinence and they had to respond. Atletico were weakened by losing Thibaut Courtois, Filipe Luis and Diego Costa to Chelsea and they have felt gravity’s pull this season. In this game, money tends to make the difference. Atletico could only defy the financial reality for so long. Barcelona’s response to losing the title was to drop Luis Suarez alongside Lionel Messi and Neymar, and so, a year on from that unforgettable afternoon at the Nou Camp, the title will be theirs if they beat Atletico at the Vicente Calderon this evening.
Not that it will be straightforward. Atletico will not go down without a fight. It is not in their nature and they are bound to make life as awkward as possible for Barcelona. There will be no free gifts. But a team this special can usually get along just fine without any help from their opponents. Last season, Barcelona did not know what to do against Atletico. They couldn’t beat them in the league and they lost to them in the quarter-final of the Champions League, but they seem to have worked them out this year. Having a front three of Neymar, Suarez and Messi helps.
Not that having them is a guarantee of success. Indeed Barcelona were verging on crisis at the start of 2015. When they lost to Real Sociedad on 4 January, Luis Enrique was in trouble. There were ructions in the boardroom and there was even talk of Lionel Messi leaving this summer; Enrique had started Messi on the bench in that defeat and that rarely goes down well with the little genius.
Some crisis. The turnaround began a week later, when Atletico turned up at the Nou Camp, supposedly to heap more pain on Barcelona. What they were confronted by, however, was Barcelona’s best performance for at least a couple of years. The wounded animal tore into Atletico, they won 3-1 and Enrique’s decision to move Messi to the right and Suarez into the middle has paid off handsomely. The front three exploded. Just the 113 goals between them this season.
Madrid were top at the time but as Barcelona grew stronger, Carlo Ancelotti’s side began to unravel and they soon relinquished their lead. They have been underwhelming. Madrid’s draw with Valencia last weekend means that with two games left, Barcelona only need one more win. Madrid are also in action, away at Espanyol, but they are relying on Barcelona to slip up. It seems unlikely. Even if Atletico delay the celebrations today, Barcelona will surely get the win they need when they host Deportivo next week.
To say that it has been a bad week for Madrid would be a massive understatement. The Champions League dream died against Juventus on Wednesday and today they could lose the title. Barcelona, meanwhile, reached the Champions League final by knocking out Bayern Munich on Tuesday. With the Copa del Rey final also on the agenda, the Treble beckons and not many people would have seen that coming when they were outsmarted by David Moyes at the start of January. But things change.
Kick-off: 7pm in Madrid, 6pm in London.
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