Over the course of a grueling ten-month league season, the significance of clashes between evenly matched teams was never limited to the three points on offer. It meant much more.
This was especially obvious in La Liga, where the gap between the strong and the weak was so pronounced.
Someone analyzed the course of last season's La Liga and concluded that the reason Real Madrid had fallen into such chaos was that their true collapse had begun with the El Clásico in the tenth round. After suffering a disastrous 1–5 defeat to Barcelona, Real Madrid had embarked on a path of no return.
Before the tenth round, Real Madrid trailed Barcelona by four points in the standings. That was hardly an insurmountable gap. Moreover, Real Madrid had suffered consecutive defeats in the eighth and ninth rounds and had gone winless in nearly four rounds, including a 0–3 away loss to Sevilla in the sixth round.
In other words, despite going winless in four consecutive rounds and suffering three heavy defeats, Real Madrid were only four points behind Barcelona.
At that point, Real Madrid had not yet hit rock bottom. There was still a glimmer of hope.
They simply had to take down Barcelona at Camp Nou!
As long as they defeated Barcelona, Alavés would move to the top, followed by Sevilla and Atletico Madrid. Barcelona and Espanyol would then be level on points, with Real Madrid just one point behind them. In that situation, Real Madrid would be only three points behind leaders Alavés and two points behind Atletico Madrid and Sevilla.
It could be said that if Real Madrid had won that clash between the giants, their situation would have been completely different. The team might even have used that victory to escape the mire and shadow of four