COLUMN: La Liga Midseason Awards Night – Biggest Surprise, Best Performer, Biggest Disappointment…
Yesterday at 01:02 PM
This is the official 'halfway point' of the 2024/25 season in La Liga – 19 rounds down, 19 rounds to go – and as such, I felt it appropriate to hand out a few Football España Midseason Awards. These honours will hopefully highlight the league's strength in its star power as well as its diversity in approach from team to team, club to club.
Let's start with…
Biggest surprise
My biggest surprise of the season so far is RCD Mallorca – but it is an open question as to how long the islanders can jockey for European position against some of Spain's biggest clubs.
At the season's halfway mark, Mallorca are sixth in LaLiga, level on 30 points with Villarreal and six points behind Athletic Club in the final Champions League place. In his first season on the job, Jagoba Arrasate has Los Bermellones on track to return to European competition for the first time since 2004 (despite being outshot by nearly 60 attempts) thanks to a strong defensive identity, forged through experienced players like Antonio Raillo, Martin Valjent, Dani Rodriguez, and trash-talking king Pablo Maffeo.
Mallorca's problem is goal-scoring – and in light of a new FIFA sanction, that problem might be difficult to solve in the January transfer window. Mallorca's top scorer is Cyle Larin, with five goals; Arrasate's men have underperformed their goals for mark by around five, according to Understat's expected goals methodology. Mallorca making Europe would be one of the best stories anywhere in this European football season; I am skeptical that Arrasate has the necessary firepower to achieve it, although an early Copa del Rey exit may end up helping.
Biggest disappointment
Valencia CF are the easiest winner (or is that loser?) of this award, given that club owner Peter Lim parted with €4.74m to acquire new coach Carlos Corberan after refusing to sanction a transfer worth more than €1.5 million over the summer transfer window (shoutout to relegation candidate mainstay Luis Rioja). You want to know the last time Valencia spent more than €10m on a signing? Go back to the summer of 2019, when Lim approved the signing of Maxi Gomez for €14.5m! (Valencia's swap of Neto for Jasper Cillessen that summer was made at a cool €9m loss for the club.)
After flirting on-and-off with the drop in recent years, it really does feel like this will be the season in which Valencia suffer an historic relegation – the club's first since 1986. It is the byproduct of a decade's worth of mismanagement from Lim, and – if it comes to pass in May – will occur against the backdrop of October's devastating floods in the region.
Valencia have scored 10 goals from open play all season; only Valladolid and Leganes average fewer shots per game. Los Che are rock bottom of La Liga, with just two wins, and four points adrift of safety. And with upcoming tilts against Real Sociedad and Barcelona, in addition to a Copa del Rey fixture against Ourense… It's not looking great for one of Spain's largest clubs.
There has been a slight improvement in Valencia's play since Ruben Baraja's departure last month; Javi Guerra has returned to the deeper-lying midfield role in which he excels. And a silver lining (I guess) at Mestalla is that Valencia's -9.9 expected goal difference is only the fifth-worst in Primera, so there very well may end up being three worse teams when the season comes to an end.
Best performer
Though Jude Bellingham has a good case to make here – especially in recent weeks, when Real Madrid haven't gotten much of anything done if he's not involved – Raphinha has a better one.
I have been of the opinion that over the past couple seasons, Raphinha has not always played at the level required to succeed at Barcelona; I have found him to be inconsistent and indecisive. Not the case this season. Raphinha has been reborn under Hansi Flick's management, which delivered a trophy on Sunday as Barca swatted aside Madrid for the second time this season to win the Supercopa de Espana. The Brazilian scored the third and fifth goals in that rollicking 5-2 victory; in LaLiga, he is second in the Pichichi race with 11 goals and second on the assists chart with six.
Ancelotti on Bellingham:
"What has changed a bit recently is his position without the ball, which is a little more central. In recent games we've had him behind the strikers defensively. The team has handled the change well, with the ball absolutely nothing has changed." pic.twitter.com/slDNRmQMLf
— Football España (@footballespana_) January 5, 2025
Flick's arrival has emboldened Raphinha, perhaps too much for the club's liking; the winger's recent comments about the Dani Olmo registration fiasco (see below) cannot have sat well with president Joan Laporta or the pals who surround him on the Barcelona board. But whatever magic Raphinha, Lamine Yamal, and Robert Lewandowski can conjure in the second half of the season will determine whether Barca can overcome Madrid and Atletico atop the table.
Most likely to break the rules – and get away with it
FC Barcelona again! Felicidades to all the culers out there! Your club found a way to cheat the rules and register Dani Olmo for the second half of this season.
There could not have been much surprise when, on the 9th of January, Barcelona announced that it had 're-registered' Olmo and Pau Victor following a "provisional" (lol) ruling by Spain's national sporting council over the attackers' playing futures. Never mind that Barcelona only achieved the "1:1" standing after the new year, several days after the deadline to register Olmo had passed; the CSD bought Barca's 50-page, 60-document appeal hook, line, and sinker – ostensibly, "for the good of Spanish football."
Folks, there is nothing good about 18 other clubs having to comply with some of the strictest financial controls in European football while Barca and Madrid have the mandate to do whatever they want. It is the outcome of years upon years of marketing that eschewed the cultural and stylistic vibrancy of La Liga at the expense of propping up two behemoths who often can't get out of their own way and want to upend the continental landscape entirely by breaking away to the Super Le–sorry, the Unify League. Give me a break.
Laporta came out swinging, as expected. And he's very good at that, of course. In terms of real detail, there wasn't much that was new. The timeline and basic facts as already understood.
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) January 14, 2025
In all seriousness, I can only hope that the Caso Olmo serves as a flashpoint for how we view, discuss, and analyse Spanish football – this preferential treatment (and it is not merely perception) must end.
"It's very sad that a club as beautiful as Barca is still allowed to cheat," former Barcelona midfielder Ronald de Boer said in a recent interview. "Other clubs play by the rules, they try to survive, but Barcelona are allowed to get away with everything, which is crazy. If it were a company, it would have filed for bankruptcy."
Kings of game state
If you've read Vishal Varier's excellent work on Football Espana, then you'll be somewhat familiar with the concept of "game state" and how different teams attack – or defend – whether they are ahead, behind, or tied on the scoreboard.
When a given match has a goal difference of 0, Villarreal provide the most fireworks, with a combined 30 goals (17 for/13 against) in this context. It goes some way toward explaining why Marcelino's team is so… Unlike Marcelino, given Villarreal's defensive fragility despite its Alex Baena-led attacking potency. Barcelona (18 scored/8 conceded) are the league's best team at 0-0, 1-1, etc., with a gaudy plus-10 differential.
Most likely to win La Liga
To wrap up our midseason awards, I want to frame this award as a prediction of sorts.
The title race in Spain has already tossed up several twists and turns, and it looks like a three-team battle this time around – which means the eventual winner is unlikely to accrue 90 points. As such, those conditions favour one team: Atletico Madrid.
Call me biased as an Atletico fan and writer, but we are halfway through the season and I believe neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid have a stronger squad, top-to-bottom, than Atleti. The Colchoneros won their 14th consecutive game – and eighth successive league match – on Sunday, defeating Osasuna in a contest that emanated 2014 vibes: a 1-0 scoreline, a solid defensive showing, and a goal from a clever set piece routine. Top scorer Alexander Sorloth did not even have to play in the first game since his 96th-minute heroics led Atleti past Barca four days before Christmas.
Y Simeone acabó su rueda de prensa así:
"Mejor me callo… chao". pic.twitter.com/O2DDIi10HT
— El Chiringuito TV (@elchiringuitotv) January 11, 2025
Atletico are on course to finish the season with 88 points – right in the middle of its 2014 (90) and 2021 (86) point totals. The Rojiblancos have the league's best defence and can solidify their position atop La Liga with one or two smart January pickups as they push for a third league title under Diego Simeone's stewardship.
Jeremy Beren can be found on social media here, and if you're hungry for more, find their excellent work here.
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