Barcelona has just beaten Valladolid 1-0 in stoppage time, playing the last minutes with an extra player and as a home team. Valladolid is fighting to avoid relegation.
It is clear that the supremacy of Barcelona and Real Madrid in soccer is coming to an end.
And in the Champions League they have not been the star players for a couple of years now.
To such an extent that La Liga has seen Atletico Madrid leading from the start, having made, as always, the fight, tactics and order their fundamental weapon.
And although they have lost a lot of ground, they are still in the lead in La Liga.
Perhaps it will not have enough fuel to win the title and will not be able to resist the onslaught of the two Spanish giants. But what it has done so far is more than worthy.
So far this season Barcelona has played 29 games, won 20, lost 5 and drawn 4.
Out of 81 points it has salvaged 65, with a 77% efficiency rate.
Real is there, close, two units away. And next Saturday they will face each other. Maybe the championship will be decided.
Or maybe everything will remain the same and Atletico will take advantage of it. There are no possible conjectures. None of them is shining. None of them is playing well.
In the most brilliant seasons where only the white and blue and whites counted, the number was almost always above 90 points at the end of the championship.
In the 2014-15 season Barcelona shouted champion with 94 points and repeated in the following season with 91.
After an interval Madrid shouted champion again in 2017-2018 with 93 points dropping for the first time in 2018-2019 to 87 points.
In 2016-2017 it was Real Madrid's turn with 92 points obtained that won again in a pandemic 2019-2020 season with 87 points.
Whoever is the champion in the current season is very unlikely to come close to those figures.
Spanish soccer is not what it used to be.
Image source: La Liga.com