Madrid, May 24 (IANS) The 2025-26 La Liga season ended Saturday night with Barcelona champion, Real Madrid second and Oviedo, Mallorca and Girona relegated to the second tier. Some clubs can look back with satisfaction, while others face an uncomfortable summer. Here are the end-of-term marks in Spain’s top flight
FC Barcelona finished top of the class, with Hansi Flick’s side recovering from a slow start, perhaps affected by the loss of defender Inigo Martinez to Saudi Arabia, to dominate the competition.
Lamine Yamal, Pedri, Raphinha, Pau Cubarsi, Eric Garcia and Joan Garcia were all outstanding, but Flick also deserves special praise for showing faith in young players and rotating a thin squad so effectively that injuries to key players were hardly noticed, reported Xinhua.
Villarreal, Real Betis, Celta, Getafe and Rayo Vallecano also deserve high marks.
Villarreal played rapid counter-attacking football to book its place in the Champions League almost a month before the end of the season, with Gerard Martin again showing he is arguably Spain’s best specialist striker and Georges Mikautadze also impressing.
The disappointment was Villarreal’s Champions League campaign, and that may be one reason Marcelino Garcia Toral will not continue as coach next season.
Betis also qualified for the Champions League under the steady guidance of Manuel Pellegrini, with Cucho Hernandez, Aitor Ruibal and Ezze Abde all impressing.
Celta reached the Europa League quarterfinals and finished sixth to secure a return to the competition after playing entertaining football under Claudio Giraldez. Borja Iglesias led the line, while Carl Starfelt was a rock in defense.
Getafe may not be the most attractive side to watch, but Jose Bordalas again forged his players into a unit greater than the sum of its parts. After a poor first half of the season, good January signings helped Getafe finish seventh and qualify for the Conference League.
Rayo Vallecano also deserves high marks for finishing eighth with one of the lowest budgets in La Liga, while also reaching Wednesday’s Conference League final, which could still earn the team a place in Europe next season.
The Madrid-based club will pay a price for that success, with young coach Inigo Perez expected to leave and Villarreal his probable destination.
Real Sociedad also earns a pass mark after a notable improvement under Pellegrino Matarazzo, who took the club from relegation candidate to Copa del Rey winner. La Real would probably have finished higher in La Liga, but results dipped in the final month after the Cup triumph secured a place in Europe.
Real Madrid has to view its season as a failure. It ends a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy, having finished well behind Barcelona in La Liga, lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarterfinals and crashed out of the Copa del Rey against second-division Albacete.
Xabi Alonso promised to bring order, but player power saw him sacked in January, leaving Alvaro Arbeloa with the almost impossible task of working with players who knew their voice carried more weight than the coach’s. Major changes should be expected this summer.
Atletico Madrid fans also end the season frustrated. Diego Simeone’s side again qualified comfortably for the Champions League, knocked Barcelona out of that competition and reached the Copa del Rey final, again beating Barca on the way.
However, Copa del Rey defeat to Real Sociedad and a Champions League semifinal exit to Arsenal mean Atletico again went close without winning a trophy. Nobody in Spain has spent more money over the past two years.
Elsewhere, there was a traffic jam in mid-table.
Valencia earns a narrow pass mark after an end to the season that saw it pull clear of relegation and almost qualify for Europe under the often-criticized Carlos Corberan, who probably deserves more credit for working on a limited budget.
Athletic Club was one of the season’s biggest disappointments. A campaign that promised so much ended with the club looking over its shoulder at the bottom three. Injuries, loss of form to key players, a packed schedule and the sense that Ernesto Valverde’s coaching had become predictable all contributed to Athletic’s poor season, but new coach Edin Terzic should freshen things up.
Sevilla struggled all season until Luis Garcia Plaza turned things around, and a big-money takeover should improve a side desperately lacking creativity.
Espanyol’s excellent first half of the season stalled with an 18-game winless run, before an upturn in form in the final month saved it from possible relegation.
Alaves secured survival under Quique Sanchez Flores after Eduardo Caudet left to coach River Plate. Toni Martinez’s goals in the second half of the season helped the club achieve its survival target, while Elche coach Eder Sarabia also deserves credit for sticking to his footballing philosophy when it looked as if his side could run out of steam on its return to the top flight.
Luis Castro worked a miracle to save a Levante side that had looked doomed, with young striker Carlos Espi scoring 11 goals in 1,338 minutes, nearly all of them in the closing weeks of the campaign.
A month ago, Osasuna was a candidate for Europe and coach Alessio Lisci looked set for a good grade. Four defeats to end the campaign changed everything, with Osasuna needing favorable results elsewhere to survive and Lisci’s job now hanging by a thread.
Oviedo, Mallorca and Girona go down with fail marks. Girona can point to bad luck after ending the season without strikers. Mallorca paid the price for keeping faith with former coach Jagoba Arrasate for too long before appointing Martin Demichelis. Oviedo, meanwhile, simply failed to build a squad capable of competing with the best.
–IANS
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