By the beginning of February, La Liga had completed twenty-two rounds, with Barcelona sitting at the top of the table with a nine-point lead.
After El Clásico, Guardiola's team had raced far ahead with a nine-game winning streak.
Everyone knew that it was not because Real Madrid were underperforming, but because Barcelona were simply too strong and consistent.
Real Madrid's performance this season could be divided into two parts. During the first eleven rounds, Yang Yang had been recovering from injury, and Real Madrid had continued dropping points, at one point falling ten points behind Barcelona. In the following eleven rounds, Yang Yang returned, and Real Madrid had posted ten wins and one draw, earning thirty-one points.
In other words, since the twelfth round, Real Madrid had drawn only once—away against Almería.
Anyone could see that if Real Madrid had not dropped so many points in the first eleven rounds, allowing the gap with Barcelona to grow wider and wider, then the two teams would still have been evenly matched. No one could say who would have the last laugh.
The contrast between those two sets of eleven matches also made it clear that Yang Yang was simply too important to this Real Madrid side.
Especially in the recent string of 1–0 wins and the 1–1 away draw with Almería, without Yang Yang, Real Madrid might well have continued dropping points in those matches—or even lost.
Ultimately, Real Madrid's overall strength was still not enough.
"On paper, our squad is in no way inferior to Barcelona's. We might even be stronger."
After the second leg of the Copa del Rey semifinal, Real Madrid president Florentino was engaged in an animated conversation in the Bernabéu's Presidential Tribune with his two advisers, Valdano and Zidane, as well as his chief aide,