The curtain comes down on another year of football and another season of La Liga. We condense the league results for you in our end of season review. 

Barcelona

For all football fans, Messi is the gift that keeps on giving. With another record-breaking season where he finished as top scorer of La Liga and was joint-top of the assists charts as well, all his exploits directly contributed to Barcelona lifting their 8th title in 11 years and 2nd in a row.

Barcelona are truly the team to beat in La Liga but one could argue that this is more so because of the lack of competition as compared to them being exceptionally brilliant during the season. With the rest of the attackers not having their best seasons, (Luis Suarez still scored 21 goals but was short of his usual standards and has been scoring progressively less for the last few seasons and Coutinho not living up to his price tag) Barcelona will need to step it up next season by signing some new players. Signing Griezmann may be a great choice since it will strengthen them and also weaken Atletico Madrid to go along with the already-signed Frenkie de Jong from Ajax.

Atletico Madrid

Diego Simeone has once again led Atletico to a higher placed finish than their Madrid rivals Real but was unable to challenge Barcelona for the top spot, finishing 11 points behind the champions. Fans can argue that La Liga is a 3-horse race now with Atletico having successfully disrupted the duopoly that Real and Barcelona used to enjoy but based on the last 2 seasons, Atletico has only seemed to solidify their status as the second best in Spain rather than mount any meaningful challenge against the champions.

Things are not looking any rosier for them next season with them losing 4 of their stalwarts in Griezmann, Godin, Felipe Luis and Juanfran, together with the potential losses Saul and Rodri.

Real Madrid

A massive 19 points behind the champions, Real Madrid had a season to forget as they did not pick up any silverware apart from being crowned World Champions back in December. The turmoil in the managerial department did not help Real claw back the 17 point gap at the end of the 2017-2018 season, with the gap widening instead.

The sacking of Julen Lopetegui (his second in 2018 after his sacking as Spain manager) led to the appointment Santiago Solari. However, as results did not meet expectations, he was also sacked in early March and hero Zinedine Zidane was re-appointed as manager, a year after leaving the same post. With plenty of transfers to look forward to reinvent this Madrid side, next season will be interesting to watch.

Valencia

Valencia once again rounded up the top 4 spots in La Liga to clinch the last Champions League qualification spot but unlike the rest of the teams there, they had to take a difficult route having been in 16th place after the first 5 games of the season and 15th after 10. Their slow rise up the table for the rest of the season led them into 4th place only at the end of their penultimate game of the season.

Valencia’s excellent play also led them to the Europa League semi-final where they lost to Arsenal 3-7 on aggregate and will also play Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final on 25th May.

Getafe

Getafe finished the season 5th, the highest league standing they have gotten in their history but will rightly feel like they should have gotten 4th.  Dropping 5 points in the last 2 games allowed Valencia to leapfrog them but they will still be elated after creating history for their club. They will also feature in the Europa League next season, having gained automatic qualification.

Sevilla

Another team to make it to the Europa League this season, finishing 6th and level on points with Getafe, is Sevilla. However, it will be Sevilla going into the qualification round of the Europa League as compared to Getafe due to their head-to-head results.

Espanyol

Rounding up the last from La Liga to go into the Europa League is Espanyol, who secured 7th and the final spot with a final day win leapfrogging Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao. They ended the season level on points with Athletic but held onto 7th also due to their head-to-head results.

Relegated teams

Girona, Huesca and Rayo Vallecano finished 18th, 19th and 20th respectively to be relegated from La Liga. Girona were in with a shout to stay up early on but a wretched run of 1 win and 9 losses in their final 10 games condemned them to relegation.