Real Madrid could win La Liga tomorrow afternoon.
All Los Blancos need to do is avoid defeat against Espanyol at the Santiago Bernabeu and the league title is theirs. It would be Carlo Ancelotti’s first time winning Spanish football’s greatest prize.
Madrid are currently 15 points clear at the top of La Liga and have been far and away the best side in Spain this campaign. They take on an Espanyol team that’s consolidated themselves in 13th after earning promotion from Segunda last season.
Madrid will hope to win more than just La Liga this season, of course. They played Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final on Tuesday and lost 4-3 at the Etihad Stadium. The return is at the Bernabeu on Wednesday.
But while that game is of colossal importance, Ancelotti conceded, he’s keen to wrap up La Liga with the minimum of fuss tomorrow.
“After the game against City the players were already thinking about Espanyol,” the Italian coach said in his pre-match press conference in comments carried by Marca.
“The great tennis players, when they have the match ball, win the game. Hopefully we can do it tomorrow. The team has done well so far. We have played and won at almost every major ground.”
Ancelotti was reluctant to claim that his success with Madrid this season, just when he had been written off as out-of-date by so many, was a vindication of a more vintage brand of management.
“I don’t know if it is a vindication of the old school of coaches. Coaches have to travel through time and I don’t consider myself an old man. To say the football of 20 years ago is the same as today’s isn’t the case. The rules have changed and so has the football. You have to adapt and football will continue to change.”
