How does La Liga look after eleven rounds?
What immediately jumps out if you look over the La Liga standings is the position occupied by Girona: 2nd place, with nine wins from eleven games (twenty-five goals scored, the most in the league, equal with Atletico Madrid and only thirteen conceded). Fabulous!
But does Girona have the strength to challenge the big boys from Madrid and Barcelona this season? The answer is: rather not. When they met Real, they slipped up like a mid-table team, a flawless win for Real: 0-3. Girona is beautiful like an Indian summer, like an October that combines autumn colors with July weather (without the heatwave). But you know it won’t last.
Real Madrid is at this moment in first place, and that should never surprise anyone. Real Madrid no longer have Benzema, but they do have Bellingham, who is the fittest footballer in the world today. A player who at twenty has the maturity of a thirty-year-old. Bellingham is one of the few footballers who cost over a hundred million euros, but he is worth his money. He’s ultra-talented, has a formidable vision of the game, has leadership instincts and is decisive. And El Clasico just seemed like a game to him.
With Bellingham in such form, Real will not be stopped. But can a team like Real Madrid depend so much on a twenty-year-old kid, even the best in the world today?
Real are in a transitional phase, they haven’t built the great team of the future yet – they don’t have Mbappe or Haaland, they don’t have any world-class defenders. It’s just that from the bench Ancelottti gives, from the height of his experience, confidence. Don Carlo manages evenly, without muddying the waters, but it’s hard to believe he has any aces up his sleeve if Bellingham gets injured or if he will stop playing at his level. Real Madrid is playing noticeably better after the break. And that surely has something to do with the way the Italian emphasizes his ideas in the dressing room at half-time.
Atletico Madrid are a tricky team, lying in wait but also looking a long way from the form of a decade ago, and in Barcelona Mr. Xavi is playing the alchemist. He hasn’t yet found the formula to turn talent from La Masia academy into gold. Barcelona sometimes has the air of a team of children and juniors, who receive advice and guidance from some veterans (Lewa, Gundogan), but it is far from the maturity needed for an unequivocal triumph in La Liga.
By the way, an El Clasico starring Mick Jagger isn’t exactly an El Clasico anymore (not that Sir Jagger isn’t a giant, because he is). But something has been lost, and it seems to have been lost forever. Where are the superstars from a decade ago? They’re gone. Not even Bellingham – no. It’s far too soon.
Young Jude, however, shows us something else: where a UK talent can go if he doesn’t rub his shins week after week in the Premier League against the toughest quarterbacks in the world. Raised in Germany and stunningly transformed in Spain, Bellingham shows us a way.
The rankings, we said. Next up is a group of balanced value teams (Mallorca has an incredible run of draws!), and nothing is set in stone for relegation just yet. Maybe just the fact that Almeria does not show the level of a Primera Division team. When you haven’t beaten anyone in eleven games, you can already pack your bags for Segunda Division.
