La Liga Weekly

Hay Liga de nuevo, my brothers and sisters, or at least until next week I guess; seems that whenever Barcelona have a slip, the rafters at the Bernabeu start emptying with all sorts of oxygen deprived inhabitants coming up for air, the sun hitting on their pale washed-out faces screaming, “Hay Liga, Hay Liga, Hala Madrid”, but that’s predictable, predicting the failure of your bitter rival, but so was the goal Pipita Higuain scored for them on Saturday, one of his classic poacher’s goals ping-ponged into the area. Xabi Alonso hit the post, trying to duplicate his international form, as Madrid beat Racing de Santander 1-0, but it wasn’t as easy as it seems from reading the Madrid dailies. Their energy was clearly up for Racing, who as I predicted would pressure them high up the pitch and kick them solidly (which they did), but the Galactico’s are still MIA. Benzema has to find his killer instinct soon or Pellegrini will have to wake Raul Madrid from his month long nap, Kaka is still a hair’s breadth off his top form, missing one spectacular shot from outside the box, and an injured Cristiano Ronaldo was spotted texting away obliviously in the background. Real Madrid continue to win without impressing and frankly they wouldn’t have if the beautiful back-heel by Luis “I love Sangria” Garcia that set up Sergio Canales’s disallowed goal had stood up.

What wasn’t predictable was the score between Bilbao and Barcelona: a 1-1 draw at the Cathedral at San Mames. I knew it would be a kick to the head for the traveling blaugrana but I didn’t know how right I’d be. Messi getting a boot to the head? Was this a bad youtube video? Despite a slew of chances early on, Keita missed on a skied header and Messi failed to flick it past a diving Iraisoz, the vascos were secure in the box and predictably physical with the invading swarm of small Catalans. Xavi directed traffic and found a darting Dani Alves for what seemed the decisive goal, but Alves’s defensive instincts failed him as he allowed hulking Fernando Llorente’s flicked ball into the path of Gaizka Toquero who left Alves and shot past Victor Valdez for the equalizer. The critics are going to blame it on the swine-flu epidemic Yaya Toure and Eric Abidal are suffering, and Rafa Marquez is attempting to explain his poor form on the same virus, but I wouldn’t be too worried, domestically I mean. They have bigger fish to fry at the Guiseppe Meazza against Inter Milan on Tuesday before next week’s super-fantastico-clasico, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic is carrying a hamstring injury into this very important stretch.

There is definitely a league race, Hay Liga as they say in Spain, but instead of each other, both should really be worried about Sevilla FC. The rojiblancos have depth in attack, especially on the wings where Diego Perotti has secured the left over the more well known Diego Capel, and Jesus Navas who is stronger than he’s ever been has become a real terror on the right. Navas not only set-up Perotti with a pin-point, low-diagonal cross to the far post, but his dribbling skills and vision were evident when he found a streaking Fredi Kanoute, this is a PG-13 column so I won’t comment any further on that, and his pass found an opportunistic Renato for a screaming golazo from outside the box beating Tenerife on the island 1-2. In fighting terms, Sevilla are tough enough to out-muscle Madrid and they are disciplined enough to punch with Barcelona without allowing them to get into rhythm. They are more than a dark horse for me; my early favorites for the league