Goals galore in La Liga as Madrid teams seem unfazed by looming transfer ban
Eight of the players named as the FIFA World Best XI, position by position, from 2015 at last Monday's FIFA Ballon D'Or awards are employed in Spain's Liga, where the impulse to recruit the best attacking footballers has long been powerful. So much so, that, with respect to the likes of Gonzalo Higuain, in Italy's Serie A, Robert Lewandowski in Germany's Bundesliga, or Sergio Aguero at the English Premier League's Manchester City, it would be hard not to name three Liga strikers in even the B side of any imaginary world squad as well as the three to spearhead its A team.
The second half of the Liga campaign, marked by matchday 20, featured a flurry of goals from the celebrated six forwards owned by Real Madrid and Barcelona. Madrid, fresh from the five goals shared out between Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema against Deportivo la Coruna eight days earlier, went 3-0 up after only 12 minutes against Sporting Gijon, with each member of the so-called 'BBC' on the scoresheet. Yet another header from Bale began a rout that finished 5-1, and there were two goals from Ballon D'Or runner-up Cristiano Ronaldo and two from Benzema.
Madrid remain third in the table, because Barcelona then walloped Athletic Bilbao, whose opportunities for repeating their Spanish Super Cup win against the defending champions disappeared with the third minute sending off of goalkeeper Gorka for a foul on Luis Suarez. Lionel Messi, Ballon D'Or holder as of six days earlier, converted the penalty, and then left his illustrious partners to mount up the goals. Suarez scored a hat-trick, to nose ahead of Neymar, who scored once and set up two other goals, as La Liga's leading scorer, with 18 so far. Ivan Rakitic intruded from midfield with the other goal in a 6-0 triumph.
Barcelona thus reached 50 goals for the Liga campaign so far -- and have played one match less than the other teams around the summit -- while Madrid have 57 already. Neither, though, are top. Atletico Madrid maintained their hold on the leadership with an atypically high score for them, a 3-0 win at Las Palmas.
Anybody looking for symptoms of distress among any of the three leading clubs because of the transfer bans imposed on them by FIFA as punishment for having infringed regulations on the correct registration of players under the 18 looked in vain this weekend. In Barcelona's case, the year-long suspension on adding new players has just ended, and it covered a year in which they won five of the six competitions they entered.
In the cases of Real Madrid and Atletico, the bans, which will be appealed, would extend until next February. But the idea that either Madrid club has an urgent need for reinforcements is hard to sustain when they breeze to such handsome wins.
Atletico will feel the pressure to keep Antoine Griezmann, their leading goalscorer and one of Diego Simeone's most coveted players, into 2017. Chelsea, whose roster of strikers includes the former Atletico center-forwards Radamel Falcao and Diego Costa, admire Griezmann, as do Paris Saint-Germain.
On his current form, that is no surprise. Griezmann appears irreplaceable. His two goals at Las Palmas on Sunday were his seventh and eighth in 10 Liga matches. Griezmann has 12 of the 30 goals Atletico have scored in their 20 Liga outings.
Griezmann is also the one out-and-out striker in Simeone's squad who has been at the club for more than 12 months. Jackson Martinez, Fernando Torres -- in his second Atletico spell -- and Luciano Vietto all arrived in 2015, a sign of the relatively high turnover that is Atletico's practice. It's partly necessary because they are vulnerable to predatory bids from wealthier clubs, but also because Simeone has a desire to keep the squad freshened up, to find alternative weapons within a consistent, recognizable style. And that style is one Griezmann has mastered, his pace the perfect asset for Atletico's counter-attacking.
As for Real Madrid, there is a belief that the most important addition they might make to their senior staff in all of 2016, transfer ban or not, was the appointment they made in the first week of the new year, when Zinedine Zidane replaced Rafa Benitez in the most important seat in the dugout.
Zidane's first two matches as a head coach have now yielded 10 goals. "There is more empathy with him than there was with Benitez," said Cristiano Ronaldo after his satisfactory return to scoring habits. "He has given us a push. He sees the game in a different way to Benitez." And no, Ronaldo added, the players had not conspired in any way to have Benitez sacked, after less than half a season in charge.
The praise from superstar to manager was returned by Zidane. "The three strikers were all strong, which is no surprise, and I was pleased with what they did off the ball. They worked hard defensively." There will be many opponents who examine Madrid's ability to defend as an 11 far more than Sporting do, but, for the moment, as Zidane said, there is no great case for emergency reinforcements, even if the injured sole of Bale's left foot - the Welshman had to be substituted - is a temporary setback, and may mean some days out of action for him.
"I have 25 players all wanting to play," said Zidane, "and the hard part of my job is deciding which ones do." It did not sound like a demand for new signings.
