Barça sealed the season with a ‘perfect’ League after beating Atlético de Madrid (2-1) and having won all 30 games they have played in Primera Iberdrola. The Catalan team has not lost a league game since June last year, precisely against the mattress team, and closes this season as the team with the highest scorers in the League (159) and the one that has conceded the fewest goals (11). A balance at the height of very few and that allows him to face the Champions League final, a week from now, with morale through the roof.
Jonatan Giráldez’s team, accustomed to collecting records, became the only team to have completed a single group League with full wins. The closest precedent would be that of Levante in the 2001/02 season, when they lost a single match in a 20-day League. But the Women’s First Division has undergone several renovations and we do find some examples of teams that managed to finish undefeated in Leagues that were played with a regular phase and promotion playoffs. This is the case of Levante in 00/01 or Málaga in 97/98.
Barcelona did not have an easy duel to end the year. Atlético de Madrid was playing for the last place in the Champions League with Real Madrid and needed to score at least one point, or wait for White to lose their duel against Villarreal. In the end, there was neither one circumstance nor the other, and it will be Real Madrid that accompanies Barça and Real Sociedad in European competition next year.
Barça, who wanted to finish the season with plenty of triumphs, did their homework early and, with the complicity of Lola Gallardo, went 2-0 after 20 minutes of play. And that the Barça team did not go well, they made many mistakes and inaccuracies in their passes and Atlético, who were playing for their ticket to the Champions League, tried to take advantage of the infrequent turnovers of the Catalan players. It was only a few minutes, but the ghosts of last season hovered over Johan Cruyff, when the colchoneras endorsed Barça the last defeat that the Barça team has conceded in the League.
Coming out of a corner, when the first ten minutes of the match had passed, Irene Paredes sent a powerful header into the back of the net. Patri Guijarro got in the way of the ball, confusing Gallardo and Banini, who saw Barça take the lead. With the goal, Barça recovered its most recognizable version and the second would soon arrive, a poisoned cross from Aitana that beat the mattress goalkeeper, again unlucky in her intervention.
Jonatan Giráldez’s team, who watched the game from the stands after being sanctioned for protesting in the last league game, did not give up ground at any time and seemed confident of being able to widen the gap. The only reaction to the azulgrana monologue was the approaches of Thembi Kgatlana. The South African enjoyed up to three good opportunities to score, but Sandra Paños once again demonstrated her great quality by saving each of them with great saves.
Barça went into the break with the score 2-0 against an Atlético that was virtually out of the Champions League, as Real Madrid went ahead with a penalty against Villarreal in the first half. Inexplicably, Oscar Fernández replaced Kgatlana, the most active in the mattress forward, at half-time, and the game got even more complicated in the 59th minute when Van Dongen committed a clear penalty on Jenni Hermoso and was sent off. Although the rojiblanco team would recover their hopes when Alexia missed the shot from eleven meters, which went into the hands of Gallardo. The goalkeeper from Madrid wanted to make up for her bad first half and she intervened again to stop a dangerous shot from Jenni Hermoso. They were the best minutes of an Atlético team that managed to close the gap in minute 64, thanks to Amanda Sampedro.
The most emotional moment of the morning would come in the 65th minute, when Rolfö gave way to Melanie Serrano who, on her last day before hanging up her boots, was greeted on the pitch by a corridor made up of Barça and Atlético de Madrid players . A beautiful gesture that moved the Andalusian footballer, who has spent 18 seasons with the Barça team.
The Madrid team needed only one goal to get into the Champions League, but in numerical inferiority and above all a Barcelona, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. In the 90th minute Aitana Bonmatí was sent off for a clear foul to prevent Ajibade’s goal, who was going alone against Paños after Mapi failed to stop her. The one from Sant Pere de Ribes played it to avoid a tie and resignedly assumed his expulsion. The referee gave four added minutes, the same as at the Di Stéfano for a Real Madrid team that suffered against Villarreal to keep their victory to a minimum. Nerves, tension, but the final whistle came and with it the last European place for the white team.
With Barça once again revalidating the Primera Iberdrola title, the season ends with Real achieving a historic participation in the Champions League, in which they will be accompanied by Real Madrid, who won their European ticket on the last day. Rayo Vallecano and Eibar are the two teams that will go down to the Second Division next season. Their places will be occupied by Alhama, champion of the southern group of Reto Iberdrola, and we will have to wait to find out the team that rises in the northern group, in which Espanyol, Osasuna and Levante Las Planas fight for first place.
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