Gone in 60 seconds (ahaha!)
Gone in 60 seconds: Barcelona's title hopes
Goals for Real Madrid and against Barcelona in the 89th minute of week 34 have turned the La Liga title race on its head.
Sid LoweMay 14, 2007 4:32 PM
A lot can happen in 60 seconds. Nicolas Cage can steal your car. Gary Barlow can steal your heart. And Real Madrid can steal your title, leaving you a quivering, empty-handed, teary-eyed wreck, half the man you used to be.
Just ask cowering Carles Puyol, the footballer whose terrified, defeated face is plastered across the covers of this morning's papers, from La Vanguardia to Sport and AS to El Periódico. Gone is the fearless Captain Caveman of yore; instead Puyol looks up at Frank Rijkaard, sheer panic in his eyes as if he's just discovered the coach clinging to him is not a mild-mannered Dutchman after all but a flesh-eating zombie who hasn't had a decent meal in weeks. Hardly surprising, really, because sixty seconds - sixty measly seconds! - could have cost FC Barcelona the league title and Puyol knows it.
Never mind, pedants, that Madrid and Barça actually played 24 hours apart, the title race has turned on a solitary minute: the 89th of the 34th week of the La Liga season - a minute that, as Rijkaard admitted, left Barça "banging our heads against the wall."
Jornada 34, minute 89, and Madrid are drawing 3-3 with Espanyol, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Raúl and Jose Antonio Reyes having hauled back a brilliant Walter Pandiani hat-trick. Jornada 34, minute 89, and Barcelona are winning 1-0 against Real Betis, Ronaldinho having scored an early penalty. Barça are four points clear at the top of the table, with just four games to go and Madrid are third, four points adrift, their challenge over. But then something happens: Madrid score. And so do Betis. Gonzalo Higuaín bursts through at the Bernabéu: 4-3! Rafael Sobis bursts through at the Camp Nou, 1-1! One minute, two goals, four points and half a title.
All of a sudden Real Madrid are top for the first time since October 2005 and on course for a first trophy in four years; all of a sudden Barcelona, knocked out of the Copa del Rey after being obliterated by Getafe, abused by their fans and mocked by opponents, are on the verge of dropping out of the title race too. It's crisis time in Catalunya and the hankies are out at the Camp Nou.
That might sound like an exaggeration, considering Madrid and Barça are level on 66 points, separated only by their head-to-head record, that Sevilla lurk just two points further back, and that there are still four matches remaining. But much as this weekend's turnaround was dramatic it also felt definitive because, while it was unexpected, at the same time there was something deeply predictable about it - a sense that it was merely the confirmation of a deeper trend. Rarely has a single minute so perfectly portrayed and perpetuated two teams' state of mind. Somehow you knew Madrid would get the winner, and somehow you knew that Barça would get caught. More to the point, physically exhausted, psychologically vulnerable, tactically shambolic, and deeply divided, somehow Barça knew it too.
All season, Barcelona have let their rivals off the hook; all season, Madrid have been let off the hook. While the failure to kill off opponents eats away at Barcelona's confidence, the failure of opponents to kill them off has boosted Madrid's. Even before they were top, there was euphoria in Castilla and panic in Catalunya as Barça looked desperately, nervously over their shoulder like a terrified businessman on the escalator at Tottenham Court Road. AS's marvellously tasteful invention, the Barça crapping-yourself-ometer, has been rocketing off the top of the scale (or perhaps seeping out the back of it). Today, gloated Catalan-bashing Tomás Guasch, "it's up to 450 crapahertz!"
You can certainly smell the fear, each game reinforcing a feeling of impeding doom at Camp Nou. If, as Jorge Valdano famously put it, football is a state of mind, Barcelona are sunk and Madrid are flying. A flying shit on a stick perhaps, but flying nonetheless. Forget the football: just look at the momentum, the conviction, and the results. Just look at this weekend: Madrid rode their luck but also showed the same spirit, determination, belief, effectiveness and fitness that has led to them winnning eight of the last nine since the 3-3 draw in the Camp Nou derby, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat to the backdrop of a roaring stadium. Barcelona had no luck but also showed the same lack of spirit, determination, belief, effectiveness and fitness that has led to them winning just three of their last six - and only just win those - snatching a draw which might as well have been a defeat from the jaws of victory to the backdrop of a murmuring, irritable stadium.
As usual, Barça dominated possession, creating chance after chance but didn't take advantage. They could have been five up at half time, but only scored one and with every minute that passed they grew more and more nervous, more aware of the risk of the threat closing in. "So, the wolf got to Barça's door," one columnist wrote, but the tragedy was he didn't even have to huff or puff for Barça to welcome him in. Yet again Barça did not so much shoot themselves in the foot as blow their entire sodding leg off with a blunderbuss. With a minute to go, and with Rijkaard having taken off Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho to "protect" the lead (like Barça know how to do that) they conceded a free kick, turned their backs, strolled away and still managed to look surprised when Sobis ran through unchallenged to score, changing everything.
No wonder they're going mental in Madrid and crazy in Catalunya, Marca screaming "It's real!" and AS jeering "Barça sink, Madrid are leaders!". Meanwhile, Sport sent out a gigantic yellow "SOS", but you can't help feeling it's too late. Fatalism hangs over the Camp Nou and the league is no longer in Barça's hands. Somehow, it's in Madrid's. Faith may not move mountains, but it can win titles.
Results:
Real Madrid 4 - 3 Espanyol, Sevilla 2 - 1 Recreativo, Getafe 1 - 4 Atlético, Nastic 1 - 3 Real Sociedad, Celta 1 - 2 Levante, Osasuna 1 - 4 Villarreal, Racing 0 - 2 Mallorca, Athletic 1 - 1 Deportivo, Barcelona 1 - 1 Betis, Valencia 2 - 0 Zaragoza.
Title run-in:
Madrid (66 points): Recre (A), Depor (H), Zaragoza (A), Mallorca (H)
Barcelona (66 points): Atlético (A), Getafe (H), Espanyol (H), Nastic (A)
Sevilla (64 points): Depor (A), Zaragoza (H), Mallorca (A), Villarreal (H)
If all three teams finish tied at the top, Madrid will be champions.
If Madrid and Barcelona finish tied at the top, Madrid will be champions.
If Madrid and Sevilla finish tied at the top, it would go to goal difference and Sevilla currently have +27 to Madrid's +21.
If Barcelona and Sevilla finish tied at the top, Barcelona will be champions.
