Barcelona head coach Luis Enrique discusses his side’s 4-0 victory over Almeria and the choice to rest Neymar.
Barcelona’s 4-0 victory over Almeria on Wednesday was another one of those games that was more of a hindrance and another example of how the Spanish league is losing ground in the battle to provide a competitive structure for the game.
For Barcelona it was of course a must-win game in the fight at the top of La Liga and means they still lead Real Madrid by four points with eight games to go, after the European champions’ more complicated 2-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano.
However, there was something of an anticlimax about the game between two sides at the opposite ends of football’s wealth and power tables and a feeling of absolute certainty about the outcome before kickoff.
This will of course come as no surprise to observers of Barca and La Liga, who only need look back to Real Madrid’s 9-1 demolition of Granada on Sunday for another recent example of a non-event.
For years Spanish football suffered from the domination of the two big clubs at the top — they shared nine straight titles between 2005 and 2014 — until Atletico Madrid finally emerged from their stupor to challenge in recent seasons.
This season a more financially stable Valencia is also competing well and will get stronger under new ownership in the years to come, to place them alongside Athletic Bilbao, Sevilla, Villarreal, Malaga and Real Sociedad in the list of La Liga club’s that can hurt the big boys on their day.
If we are feeling charitable we can also put in some plucky overachievers such as Celta Vigo, who won at Camp Nou earlier in the season and pushed Barca on Sunday, together with Rayo Vallecano who competed so well with Madrid on Wednesday only to go down 2-0. That makes up the current top 11 sides in La Liga.
The rest struggle to make any impression on the big two. Espanyol in 12th are traditionally Barca’s closest rivals and have bloodied their nose on occasion but the gap has got bigger. See this season’s 5-1 win for Barca, for example. While one club continuously signs new sponsorship deals worldwide, their near neighbours struggle year after year for survival.
The overriding reason the gap has grown so big is obviously down to money — or rather, the lack of it, as the bottom half of La Liga struggles to attract and pay talent to compete. Some may argue that is the nature of sport and the same in any league in the world but as they say here, Spain is different.
The difference between television revenues awarded to clubs in La Liga has widened to become by far the biggest of Europe’s top leagues. For example, Barca earned around €140 million last season — around 26 percent of the club’s total revenue — while Almeria received approximately €14 million.
It is a problem that has been recognised for years, and plans to put it right are currently being held up by those who run Spanish football, whereby a change in the way contracts are negotiated would move from the clubs individually negotiating their own deals to a collective negotiation and fairer share of revenues to all La Liga clubs.
For Barca and Real Madrid that will ultimately mean less revenue to compete with in Europe, but in the long term the plan may mean fewer non-events like the two seen in Camp Nou and Bernabeu this week.
Those who argue it is the same in all leagues are ignoring the fact that Barca have hit four or more goals in 11 league games this season while Madrid have achieved the same on 10 occasions. In England, leaders Chelsea have done it three times and second-placed Arsenal only twice.
The Premier League should be the benchmark for La Liga when it comes to balancing competition, but at the opposite end of the argument Spanish fans will look to the fact that Spain still has four sides in the latter stages of European competition while the Premier League has none.
For Barca it was just another day at the office and an opportunity for Luis Enrique to rest players and spread minutes around his squad ahead of bigger games to come in the league against Sevilla and Valencia and in the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain.
For the armchair fan watching at home, it is a product that is getting increasingly more predictable. A change is needed, and all eyes are on the Spanish authorities to see if they are capable of making it.
Dermot lives in Spain, where he freelances for several publications, including AFP and the Press Association. Follow him on Twitter @dermotled.