It was the round of games that could have changed everything, but didn’t really change anything, except that the finish line drew closer
Málaga’s manager Míchel González called it liberation, safety virtually secured against Sporting Gijón. Real Betis’s fans called for coach Víctor Sánchez del Amo to go, just like Gus Poyet, except that time they actually wrote a letter demanding his sacking and this time they just sang it. Diego Simeone appealed for Atlético’s fans to put down their sandwiches and shout. Thirteen kilometres down the A42 at Butarque, where the sandwiches are better than anywhere else, sizzling away on a portable hotplate, Leganés’s supporters did, beaten but singing about their top flight status on the night Real Madrid visited in the league for the first time: five points clear with eight games to go, they’re optimistic about hanging around. As for their visitors, they’re optimistic too, manager Zinedine Zidane delivering that smile and dismissing suggestions that he was daring, but he had done it again.
Midweek in La Liga, week 30, the round of games when – get this – Osasuna won but it really didn’t matter because they’re long gone. When Memo Ochoa, who has stopped more shots than anyone else in Spain, saved a penalty in Coruña but that might not matter either: Granada are still seven points from safety, their manager Lucas Alcaraz insisting before the draw with Deportivo “all that matters are bollocks” and admitting after it: “We need a win … now”; and when Sporting and Málaga met at the Molinón, Sandro Ramírez scoring the goal at one end while at the other Lacina Traoré mostly just tripped over. “Win and it’s virtually all over,” Míchel had said before and Málaga did win – for only the second time in 17 – to leave themselves eight points clear and Sporting five points adrift.
Related: Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez strike to sink Sevilla
Related: Sevilla in a spin as they prepare for life after Monchi – the man who is the club | Sid Lowe
Continue reading...