There's no question that Real Madrid are not only the best team in Spain, but also worthy champions of LaLiga. During their title march there have been guts, glory, magnificence, intensity and, from Karim Benzema, one of the great single-season performances of any footballer for Los Blancos in living memory.
None of which erases how much of an odd, angular, unusual triumph this has been -- a truth that actually makes Madrid's achievement all the more notable.
Having dealt with Espanyol and clinched the title with Saturday's comprehensive 4-0 win (stream the replay on ESPN+ in the U.S.), there remains the possibility that more Champions League glory might follow against Manchester City on Wednesday at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium. Right now, it's still feasible that Carlo Ancelotti's side becomes only the second Real Madrid squad to be Spanish and European champions since 1958. Let that possibility sink in for a moment. It's astonishing. Let's hope they pull it off.
But, for now, try to put in perspective what a diamond in the rough this LaLiga title has been.
Madrid played their first three matches away from home, nominally a disadvantaged start, then their first Bernabeu game in front of just 19,000 fans. Did you remember that? Building works, COVID restrictions -- this glittering season began a little inauspiciously.
On the subject of the Bernabeu, stadium redevelopment, with its associated venue dislocation, vast investment and reduced contact with fans, can become vastly expensive and even threatens a club's very status -- never mind their ability to win the big prizes. So to win this long slog trophy in the midst of all that disruption is laudable.
It was the Stamford Bridge redevelopment that put Chelsea on the brink of bankruptcy and made their purchase by Roman Abramovich so vital... and so simple. In Glasgow, the Old Firm giants both faced extreme financial and social trauma, plus trophy dearths, when they needed vast upgrades to Parkhead and Ibrox, respectively. Valencia's stadium nightmare -- one they don't want, another sitting half-built and unused -- nearly finished them as a club. Even the subsidised cost of the Allianz Arena, opened for World Cup 2006, left Bayern Munich financially compromised for a few years such that they lost two of the four Bundesliga titles up for grabs while it was being built. And just ask any Arsenal fan about whether the cost of the Emirates Stadium, and the loss of Highbury, has (in the short and mid-term) helped or hindered the club's finances and the match day atmosphere?
While building a football palace (the current cost of which is €800 million) which will rival any sports stadium in the world, and which will imminently make the club uber-dominant in Spanish football, Real Madrid have consistently been frugal (in relative terms) during transfer windows and as a result, only bought one significant player last summer: 18-year-old Eduardo Camavinga who cost €30m up front and who, notwithstanding that he profiles as a potentially exceptional talent, started just 10 LaLiga matches before this weekend.
Are you surprised that there's extra merit in a title win which wasn't vastly fuelled by expensive reinforcements? Get real. Or ... get Real.
David Alaba has been a lynchpin but arrived on a free transfer -- good, well-planned, successful business.
For Madrid to be playing in a work-in-progress, reduced-capacity stadium where fan atmosphere has been deflated, and without huge investment to come to the aid of the legs and lungs of a team whose first-choice XI this season (with an average age of 29) features veterans aged 32, 34, and 36 who have played 180 matches between them, is an incredibly significant achievement.
There are more anomalies about Madrid's 35th title, but only their third in the past 10 years. Take the Sevilla games. Our champions twice gifted their most dogged pursuers a lead when they played, but then forced one of Los Blancos' most favoured words, "remontada" ("comeback"), on them in each occasion.
The more dramatic of those two "will they, won't they" matches was in Seville, a hotbed of passion and searing heat. Madrid, apparently tiring, in the midst of the most extraordinary Champions League performances allowed Julen Lopetegui's side to get a two-goal start, look like they were going to crush the league leaders and then took Sevilla to the cleaners. The power, the passion, the invention and the determination of that 3-2 win at the Sanchez Pizjuan stadium, having trailed 2-0 and playing without their brilliant midfield enforcer Casemiro, will live long in the memory of the victors, the vanquished and any neutral lucky enough to have been watching.
