Real Madrid players celebrate after clinching its 34th Spanish league title.
Photo: Oscar J. Barroso/Zuma PressThe strangest thing about the moment Real Madrid clinched its 34th Spanish league title on Thursday wasn’t the computer-generated fans in the stands or the made-for-television crowd noise. The strangest thing was that Real Madrid clinched the title at all.
Nothing about this season pointed toward a championship when it began. Manager Zinedine Zidane had recently been summoned back to the club to put it back on track. The team’s backbone of Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema had a combined age of 100. And its $110 million player, Gareth Bale, was spending most of his time on the golf course.
But what figured to be a rebuilding campaign turned into a model of understated solidity that culminated with a 2-1 victory over Villarreal. This isn’t how Real Madrid tends to win titles. The most decorated club in Spanish history likes to do things with blinding flash, led by expensive stars leading offensive juggernauts.
Instead, Real Madrid managed to win La Liga for the 34th time in the most un-Real Madrid way possible. With one game remaining, the club has scored just 68 league goals this season. Over its six previous championship runs this century, Los Blancos averaged over 90. Yet since the season resumed after the pandemic interruption, they have done nothing but grind out results, winning all 10 of their matches.
“This team has shown an ability to suffer,” Zidane said before Thursday’s victory.
Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane holds the trophy.
Photo: Ngel Rivero/Zuma PressIt has suffered, for the most part, without the two most expensive players on the team. Last summer’s major signing, the $110 million playmaker Eden Hazard, has spent much of the season nursing injuries. And Bale, signed for roughly the same eye-watering price in 2013, has been relegated to the end of the bench. Appearing in less than half of Real’s league games this season, he is so far from Zidane’s plans that he was caught this month pretending to sleep in the stands during a game. His face mask was pulled over his eyes.
“What can I reply?” Zidane said this week when asked about Bale. “Nothing.”
So Real’s heroes post-pandemic wound up being the old guard. Benzema scored seven goals in 10 games. Ramos, now 34 years old, chipped in with five. The rest of the team combined for just seven more.
Just as important was the contribution from Real’s fiercest rival. Barcelona obliged Madrid by going into a mini-collapse, drawing three games and losing one of its past 10 games. And though it still boasts Lionel Messi, the supporting cast around him has continued to decline. Barça’s singular reliance on one of the players of all time—its Messidependencia, as it’s known in Spain—means that he has had to deliver nearly 40% of its goals this season.
Not that the Barcelona brass would ever admit that anything is wrong on their end. The club has spent the post-lockdown part of the season mostly blaming La Liga’s video assistant referee system for Real’s success.
“In the best league in the world, the VAR is not up to the task,” Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu said recently. “It is not very equitable and it seems as if it is always favoring one side.”
Real, naturally, disagrees. Shutting out the noise, it simply plowed ahead despite missing all of the grandeur it normally identifies with. Real hasn’t even played in its 81,000-seat cathedral, the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, in four months. All of its home matches since the restart have been at a small stadium inside Real’s practice facility near the Madrid airport.
That includes Thursday night’s clincher, which finished with Real lifting the trophy in front of zero fans while thumping music and gold confetti passed for atmosphere. Then again, Real care less than any team in European soccer about how titles are won. The only concern is that they keep piling up.
“In the end, it’s about whoever has the most points,” Zidane said after the final whistle. “Nothing else.”
Write to Joshua Robinson at joshua.robinson@wsj.com
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Real Madrid Wins La Liga in the Most Un-Real Madrid Way - The Wall Street Journal
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