Ancelotti reunion delivers the La Liga early for Real
Los Blancos clinch record-extending 35th league title with four games to spare
MADRID: Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti might have thought his days of winning Europe’s biggest leagues were a thing of the past but on Saturday he added La Liga to his glittering list of honours.
Madrid’s 35th triumph, sealed with a 4-0 win against Espanyol, ensured Ancelotti becomes the only coach to have clinched all five major European league titles.
He also won the Premier League with Chelsea, Serie A with AC Milan, Ligue 1 with Paris Saint-germain and the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.
And while Ancelotti’s Chelsea pipped Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United to the league by a single point in 2010 the others have all been won at a canter, with Real’s latest success another emphatic title win for Ancelotti, who returned to Real last summer after six years.
Madrid’s victory, and particularly the margin of victory—they sat 17 points clear of Sevilla on Saturday with four games left to play—is in part due to the fallibility of their rivals.
This was Barcelona’s first season without Lionel Messi and while the shell-shocked Catalans improved after Xavi Hernandez was appointed coach in November, they remain a club in the midst of financial recovery and a team in the early stages of transition.
Atletico Madrid, meanwhile, never looked as comfortable as reigning champions as they did as challengers.
They spent the first half of the campaign wrestling with an identity crisis that again put the spotlight on Diego Simeone and ensured their title defence was over before it began.
Sevilla were Madrid’s closest rivals for the majority of the season but more in terms of points than pressure. Every time an opening appeared for Julen Lopetegui’s team to step forward, they blinked.
Needing just one point to clinch the trophy, Madrid struck twice through Rodrygo in the first half at the Santiago Bernabeu before goals from Marco Asensio and Karim Benzema.
With La Liga wrapped up, Madrid can now turn their full attention to the second leg of their semi-final at home to Manchester City on Wednesday, when they will need to overturn a 4-3 loss from the opening game last week to advance to another European final.