Simply Fútbol: La Liga Week 4 Roundup

La Liga Week 4 Roundup

Posted by Juan Arango 9.24.2009

Although it is early, the league is already tight up top and no one will catch Real Madrid and Barcelona. Both sides were once again convincing as the Catalans gave a clinic in Santander, while the Merengues deep sixed the Yellow Submarine in Castellón.

Lionel Messi earned a brace while Cristiano Ronaldo led the pace of his team and neither were able to be stopped. If there is one thing that sets Madrid apart from Barcelona is the fact that they are more ruthless and stay on top of their opponents more. Barca in the meantime have lapses in they take they foot off of the pedal. This allows opposition to start attacking them and even score goals on them mostly due to the errors in the backline.

This was the example against Atlético and that was the case for a small stretch against Racing Santander. Omar Serrano took advantage of that mistake and was able to to give the fans at El Sardinero the only thing they could cheer about. It might not be a big thing right now, but it will be one nit-picky thing that the media will point out as the top spot in La Liga could come down to goal differential. Other than that you cannot really blame the Blaugrana for much of anything. Messi along with Zlatan Ibrahimovic have been lethal on the attack and Racing was the latest victim; falling 4-1 and earning a one-goal lead in the differential standings over Real Madrid.

Sevilla is the only team that has a slight chance to even be in the same solar system as Galácticos 2.0 and Pep Team. They will constantly be the silent pest for both of these teams, but there will be questions about their defense. They came out solid and the usual suspects were the ones that were consistent against a Mallorca side that lost for the first time this season.

One team that has not been able to find their way have been Xerez. The newcomers to the top flight have seen that playing with the big boys is a tough mission. Even though they played Real Madrid tough, they fell apart in the last 15 minutes allowing five goals and seeing their morale go down significantly. There was little time to recover for these boys, and it seemed like they needed more are a young Deportivo side was poised to add insult to injury. Xerez show potential as far as scoring, the only problem is that they need to stop doing it in their own net. Deportivo was ruthless and they showed it in their 3-0 win in Jerez.

Manu del Moral was also vicious against a Valencia side that has fallen off the cloud that they were on during the first week of the season. His brace against a suspect Valencia defense left the Azulones in prime position 3-1. With his two goals, del Moral has not become the all-time leading scorer in Getafe history, surpassing Dani Güiza.