Unbeaten Barca face Sevilla
Madrid, March 30: The last time a club was this close to an unbeaten season in La Liga, they came unstuck at Sevilla. Barcelona, with concerns over the fitness of Lionel Messi, travel to the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium on Saturday, looking to extend their own undefeated run this term to 30 league games.
It was Real Sociedad who had gone 32 without loss in the 1979-80 season, when they were only two more away from finishing the then 34-game season as invincibles.
But, in the penultimate match, Sevilla snatched a 2-1 win thanks to Ricardo Bertoni’s double, his second an 83rd-minute winner. Sevilla would finish eighth that year, Sociedad second, one point behind Real Madrid.
Barca will almost certainly not surrender the league title if history repeats itself this weekend, their 11-point lead over Atletico Madrid surely too wide a gap to close, but they would give up the chance of being the first side to end a 20-team La Liga season unbeaten.
They are now three games away from matching Sociedad’s best ever single-season streak and two from equalling that same Sociedad team’s longest run without loss overall, which amounted to 38 games when including the previous season too.
After Sevilla, Barcelona play Leganes and Valencia at home, Celta Vigo and Deportivo La Coruna away before hosting Real Madrid on May 6. They then finish at home to Villarreal, away to Levante and at home to Sociedad.
Meanwhile, Real have been less damaged by the international fixtures but Zinedine Zidane is also expected to have one eye on Europe when he picks his team to play Las Palmas on Saturday.
Flying to Gran Canaria ahead of the Turin trip for Juventus on Tuesday is not the best of preparations and it is likely those that turn out this weekend may then be left out in Italy. Gareth Bale will be hoping his four goals for Wales last week has not gone unnoticed. — AFP