Spanish Inquisition: Will Record-Breaking Barcelona Be Broken?

As Barcelona run away with La Liga and break records each week, James Walker-Roberts asks if they will slip up again this season...

Pep Guardiola might be one of the modest men in La Liga at the moment, but even he cannot deny the stone-cold facts surrounding this Barcelona side. The team which Eric Abidal yesterday described as, the best he has ever seen, are record-breakers, and worryingly for the chasing pack in the league, they don’t look like slowing down.

After beating the record points tally at the half-way stage of the season they then went on to crush Numancia 4-1 last weekend, a small measure of revenge for their only defeat of the season on the opening day. That victory lifted them to 53 points from 20 matches, meaning so far they have dropped just seven points in this campaign, three against Numancia, two against Racing Santander, and two against Getafe.

Surprisingly, the two draws both came in the Camp Nou, whilst away from home they have been perfect this season, the Numancia loss aside. The Catalan outfit currently hold the record for the most amount of consecutive victories in La Liga, with eight in a row, and it is tough to see where they are going to slip up again this season.

Real Challengers

All the talk might have been about Real Madrid and their title challenge, but as Raúl and Iker Casillas admitted in the last few weeks, if Barcelona continue like this, they will win the league. Indeed, they will not just win the league, they will run away with it, and in the process could well smash another record, the largest point tally accumulated.

Since the overall reconstruction of the league, the record is 92 points, set by Real Madrid back in 1996-97, when amazingly, Barcelona themselves finished second on a staggering 90. That was in the 22-team set-up, whilst in the current 20 team league, the record is set at 85, also achieved by Real Madrid, in the 1997-98 season. If Barcelona continue as they are, they will not just break that record, but they will surely reach a height that will not be surpassed for years to come.

With 53 points already in the bag, the question is, who can stop them this season, if anyone? The most likely challengers at the moment are undoubtedly Real Madrid, but even they are twelve points behind the Catalans, and have not looked wholly reliable in some of their most recent matches. For them to win La Liga, they will need Barcelona to lose four matches (or draw more) before the season is out, and it is hard to see where that is going to happen.

Too Late

Skipper Carlos Puyol claimed yesterday that they have already had they bad patch, and that was on the first two days of the season, and whilst that isn’t too hard to believe, surely they will drop more points somewhere. The one obvious match of course, and the key encounter left in the season, is the match at the Bernabéu, which Real Madrid will simply have to win if are to have any shot at the title.

The problem with that though, is that El Clásico is not until early May, meaning that even if Madrid do win, the title race could be over by then. So, the onus must be on other teams to beat Barcelona, and seeing as every side in the league, bar Numancia, has to play them again, they will all have a chance.

Looking down the fixture list, the obvious ones that standout are; the Catalan derby against Espanyol at the end of February, Atlético Madrid away a week later, and then Sevilla and Villarreal at the Camp Nou, along with Valencia away. Those games look like the toughest on the calendar, but it should not be forgotten that Barcelona have already beaten all of those teams, and in the case of Atlético Madrid and Valencia, they have destroyed them.

For that reason, maybe it could be the games against the smaller teams where Barcelona will slip-up, when possibly they have one eye on the Champions League, and are up against a side fighting for survival. Two towards the end of the season against Osasuna and Real Mallorca look like fitting the bill, but again, the season could potentially be over by then.

So the question remains, who can stop Barcelona? And when? If they can win their four La Liga fixtures in February, they could well be 15 points clear by the time March comes around, and surely then even Real Madrid would concede the title. One hope for los Blancos, and the rest of the chasing pack, is that Barcelona do succeed in the Champions League, and that they get some tough matches, because that could distract their attention, maybe just for a game or two. Worryingly though, Pep Guardiola is not the kind of man to lose focus, and record-breaking or not, he will have his side fight to win every game, which, at the moment, looks ominous for the rest of Spain.

James Walker-Roberts, Goal.com