Luis Suárez and Fernando Torres seize the day as La Liga becomes a sprint

If Barcelona need to, they stick seven past you. And if not, eight,” Lucas Pérez said. It was Monday afternoon and the Deportivo de La Coruña striker was preparing for the visit of April’s worst team along with Getafe,
the team that had been unable to defeat his side in their previous two meetings, both of them ending 2-2, but he knew this would not be easy. In fact, it turned out that he knew, full stop. Two and half days later, from one end of Riazor he watched as at the other end, down by the sea, Luis Suárez rolled the ball across for Neymar to step away from Manu Fernández and lift it into the net. It was Neymar’s first goal in six games and Barcelona’s eighth goal of the night.
Yes, eight.
For only the fourth time an away team won 8-0 and for the fourth time it was Barcelona: they’d done it in Las Palmas, Granada, Almería and now A Coruña. What really mattered was that they’d done it at all: they had needed this. “We had to win or win,” Ivan Rakitic admitted, and winning like this was even better. “They’re alive!” shouted Sport’s cover. “We’re back!”, cheered the cartoon in El Mundo Deportivo. The MSN were the MSN again, each of them scoring and assisting, and as for Marc Bartra, tonight Matthew he was Diego Maradona.

“We created as many chances against Valencia but this time we were tremendously effective,” Luis Enrique said. That was not the only explanation – the ball moved quicker too, while Depor were poorer opponents – but it was an explanation at least. Suddenly, the dam broke. In one evening Barcelona scored more goals than in the previous six games combined, keeping their first clean sheet in eight and finally winning for the first time in five league matches. Just when they couldn’t afford another slip, too. Not one; not now and not for the rest of the season.
Nor could anyone else. Barcelona 76 points, Atlético Madrid 76, Real Madrid 75. Three teams, three and a half weeks, five games to go, one point between them, and no margin for error. The league had become a sprint not a marathon, the same, simple objective for them all: win every game or win nothing, starting on Wednesday night with perhaps the only round of games left when all three contenders had games that, on the face of it, they might not win. First Barcelona at Riazor at 8, then Atlético at San Mamés at 8.45, and finally Villarreal at the Bernabéu at 10. “The league in four hours,” ran the headlines.
Four hours? Four games, perhaps. One down, four to go. “The team that wins the league will be the one top after 38 weeks, not 34 or 37 or 10,” Luis Enrique insisted. His team had just defeated Depor, Atlético were about to take the lead against Athletic Bilbao, and Madrid’s bus was pulling in at the Bernabéu, down the slope on Rafael Salgado street. Luis Enrique didn’t know it as the other results were not yet in at Riazor but soon they would be: a win for Barcelona, a win for Atlético and a win for Madrid. Twelve goals scored, none conceded: 8-0, 1-0, and 3-0. Week 34 changed nothing even as it changed much. All three teams overcame the first, significant set of hurdles, the sensations shifting, the favouritism too. So here we are again, just a little closer to the line. And no closer to knowing.
“No one backs down,” ran the cover of AS. “No one’s surrendering here,” ran the cover of Marca … least of all Sporting Gijón, right down at the other end of the table even if, naturally enough, the front page was not about them. Not nationally, anyway; in Asturias it was. “Epic,” La Nueva España called it. Instead, it was Luis Suárez, Fernando Torres and Luka Modric on the front of Marca, while over at AS they had gone for Suárez, Torres and Karim Benzema. With the first two, at least, there could be no doubt. Last night was a massive night and it was marked by former residents of the same red brick house in a quiet Liverpool cul-de-sac.

 

Luka Modric celebrates after scoring Real Madrid’s third goal against Villarreal. Photograph: Angel Martinez/Real Madrid via Getty Images

First, Suárez. “Hurricane Suárez,” Marca called him. He scored the opening goal after 10 minutes, the second after 24 and the fourth after 53. In the meantime, he had made the third for Rakitic after 47. He hadn’t finished there either. Only Bartra’s brilliant solo goal, scored on his first start since October and a goal so good he had them giggling over on the bench, gliding through to slip the ball home, was not of Suárez’s making. The Uruguayan gave one to Messi, one to Neymar, and scored another of his own. Four goals, three assists, and four marks in the paper … out of three. Which, if anything, seemed a little stingy.

There is something comforting about the way Atlético compete, an assuredness about them that no one can match

No one had matched that feat since 1950, and it took Suárez top of the assists charts and within a goal of Cristiano Ronaldo in the Pichichi scorers’ table. It also means he has now got 49 goals this season in 48 games, a better total than that managed by the original Ronaldo at the Camp Nou in 1996-97. One paper renamed him Luis Suárez Nazario de Lima in reference to the Brazilian. “[Recent results] are a good way of people seeing that it’s not so easy,” Suárez said afterwards, hinting at part of the reason for their recent slump when he continued: “We’re convinced that hard work will bear fruit but you have to play the games. Some thought the league was done. We know it depends on us, it’s in our hands, but it won’t be easy.”

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Not least because Madrid and Atlético will not make it easy. Zinedine Zidane had said that he could see Atlético and Barcelona winning all five games; Atlético and Barcelona can probably see Madrid winning all five too. Four now.
At around the time Suárez stood on the touchline at Riazor, the second half was beginning 550km along the north coast and Atlético were 1-0 up against Athletic. Diego Godín had gone off early – his injury does not appear serious, but results are still pending – and the suffering had started. Yet no one does suffering like Atlético – in fact, it’s tempting to conclude that they are not suffering at all – and if there was pressure, there were few chances, and ultimately a familiar finale. Even if there was a stat that surprised everyone – not one yellow card was shown and there were only 15 fouls – there is something comforting about the way this team competes, an assuredness about them that no one can match. That it finished 1-0 surprised few.
Psychologically this was a huge victory. Two years ago it was put to Diego Simeone that for all the partido a partido stuff, there must have been a moment when he thought that they could actually win the league. “San Mamés,” he said. There is something about this place, and this team. But now Atlético had gone there and won again. The hardest of their remaining fixtures had been overcome (although Celta on the final day will be difficult), and they had done it their way. No team has an identity so defined, a collective purpose so clear. Atlético have conceded only 16 goals and for the 21st time they kept a clean sheet; for the eighth time a single goal was enough for them to win.
Fernando Torres got it and that is familiar too. Alongside Antoine Griezmann, supported by Koke, he looks fast and strong and is proving decisive; there is a quiet determination about him. It might have taken him half a season to reach 100 goals for the club, but that day he was liberated; it was not the end, it was the beginning. He has the best goalscoring ratio of any Spaniard in 2016 and has now scored for five games in a row for the first time in his career. “This allowed us to beat Athletic at their ground; now the next game becomes the most important,” he said.

A cliché? Maybe, but in this race for the line it is true. As Torres talked, Real Madrid were 1-0 up against Villarreal, the opening goal scored, for the 11th time, by Benzema – alongside Keylor Navas probably Madrid’s best player this season. Eventually they went on to win 3-0, with Lucas Vázquez and Luka Modric adding one each. And so on it goes. By the end of Wednesday night, they were back where they started, only closer now. “Nothing’s changed,” Zidane said, but Simeone and Luis Enrique probably disagreed 76, 76, 75 became 79, 79, 78. Barcelona followed by Atlético followed by Madrid; one obstacle overcome, four more to go. Three teams, one point and four games to go. Live to fight another day.

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Just like Sporting Gijón, in fact. While the focus was at the top, this time the drama was at the bottom, where in barely a few seconds Málaga equalised against Rayo Vallecano and Sporting got a winner against Sevilla. It was the 91st minute in both games and the impact was enormous. Two days after going on another rant and claiming that it would be a “miracle” for his team to survive, reminding people that his was a team that last year was expected to get relegated to the Second Division B, Sporting manager Abelardo Fernández watched the defender Isma López ignore his pleas to stay back and head up the pitch instead where, offside, he scored the winner. “They shout but I act like I haven’t heard them,” López grinned afterwards.
He could afford to laugh by then. The goal took Sporting out the relegation zone and only three points from Rayo in 16th although Getafe (20th) go to Real Sociedad on Thursday night while Granada (18th) and Levante (19th) face each other. “My chest hurts; I don’t know if I had the start of a heart attack,” Abelardo said. “There were almost tears at the end. We played with heart, soul and courage. It’s been emotional. We depend on ourselves, but it’s going to agony just like this game was. We’re still in the fight for another week.”
They all are.

Talking points

• Cristiano Ronaldo walked off feeling his hamstring, the first minutes he has missed all season. It does not look serious but the risk is real. Asked if he regretted never taking off Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane smiled a little sheepishly, laughed gently and responded: “Yes. What do you want me to say?” He then admitted the decision is not really his. “It’s necessary for him not to finish games sometimes but he’s a player who always wants to play, to give everything he has. Sometimes, like today, it is very difficult for me.”
• A Paco Alcácer hat-trick for Valencia and Mestalla was loving every minute. That’s now as many wins in 11 days with Pako Ayestarán than in the whole time Gary Neville was in charge. It was also their first clean sheet in 24 weeks. From relegation fears to European dreams? Valencia are up to eighth.
• At the weekend Paco Jémez said he hoped Rayo Vallecano’s victory represented “90% of survival”. Now he insists they “know” they will have to fight until the “very last minute of the very last game”. “We’re ready for that; whatever happens doesn’t affect us,” he said.