BEVERLY HILLS, May 12, (THEWILL) – To say the Spanish title race for the 2020/2021 season has been widely unpredictable would be understating the fact and on Tuesday night, it took another twist again. But, it was one trust that many fans of the Catalan club Barcelona would be left wondering if this was the night their part in the topsy turvy tussle to the title as contenders truly ends.
Given another gilt-edged opportunity to charge to the summit of La Liga, the Lionel Messi-led side failed, as they had done every time the chance had opened up for them recently.
And, now, with just two matches left, time and opportunities appear to have both run out. This is because should league leaders Atletico Madrid beat Real Sociedad on Wednesday, they will go four points ahead of Barca with almost no time left to play catch-up.
Ronald Koeman’s title hopes went dark when his charges allowed their two-goal first half lead go up in smokes before the hour mark in the second half and did not do enough to avoid dropping very crucial points in a 3-3 draw at the Estadi Ciutat de Valencia against Levante.
The visitors were on to a perfect start at at the interval after Messi and Pedri put them two goals to the good, but Levante struck for a pair of goals early in the second period when questionable technical decisions affected the balance of the Barca formation.
Ousmane Dembele successfully restored Barca’s lead midway through the second half, but a late Levante equaliser left the Catalonians in shock at their own dismal outing.
The questionable substitutions from Barca manager combined with horrid lapses in concentration in the defense allowed Levante’s Gonzalo Merelo, Jose Luis Morales and Sergio Leon to net enough goals to cancel each one the visitors scored and potentially rule Barca out of the La Liga title race.
Koeman will have to look himself in the mirror and explain the rationale behind some technical decisions he made regarding substitutions which had a direct impact on why his side dropped two most important points because those decisions were the difference between Barca going to the top of the league with victory over Levante and Barca being realistically out of the race completely.
Koeman’s decision to take off Ronald Araujo, after a better first half than most of the team, and introduce Sergi Roberto as a central defender without changing the overall team formation affected the team’s equilibrium. Almost immediately, Barca could not handle possession effectively and each time they lost possession, Levante embarked on an attack after another.
The synergy in the team worked out a formula that seemed to stabilise that imbalance, yet just as Barca weathered the storm and started to regain control of possession and the game, out came Koeman again with another head-scratching and strange substitution, bringing in Pedri to replace Oscar Mingueza. This meant Sergi Roberto moved to midfield in a desperate attempt by Koeman to correct his initial substitution error.
Then, to complete his disaster-class, Koeman brought in Riqui Puig with about five minutes left of regulation time with little time for the youngster to actually do anything that could have changed the outcome.
For these alone, it comes as no surprise that Koeman’s charges just seem allergic to moving to the top of the La Liga table, especially with how they so endearingly lost chance after chance. They have now failed to seize the best opportunity to keep pressure on their major rivals from the Madrid capital.
It remains likely that the last has not been heard of the twists and turns La Liga has in store before the season ends but it does appear that Barcelona are now almost certainly out of the title race in La Liga except for the most disastrous collapsing of the two Madrid sides in their matches, including the one they both presently have at hand.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
