Primera Division. Nothing much at the bottom – the outsiders were clear almost from the start of the championship and nobody else had to worry. At the top: high drama. Three teams competed for the title , 1 point divided the winner from the 3rd and the champions clinched the victory by the tiniest margin – 1 goal better goal-difference. The top three were also way above the rest of the league, which, as whole had rather sedated season – not able to compete for the title, but not in danger of relegation either. As the names go, no surprises at all – the expected outsiders were at the bottom, the usual favourites at the top.
UD Salamanca – last with 20 points. Nothing new – this club had great difficulties to keep a place in the top league.
RCD Mallorca – 17th with 21 points. Going down was more or less expected from this club too.
Cadiz CF – one more club which usually went down as immediately after climbing up to first division. 16th with 22 points.
Atletico Osasuna – 15th, but out of trouble: 28 points.
Real Valladolid – 14th with 29 points. The leakiest defense – 60 goal – but otherwise no troubles. Standing from left: Moré, López, Aracil, Gail, Richard, Fenoy.
First row: Eusebio, Jorge, Da Silva, Yáñez, GªNavajas.
Sporting Gijon – 13th with 30 points. Did better in the previous seasons, but it was not a club financially able to keep strong team for long.
Valencia – 12th with 32 points. The only team really dropping down, but, to a point, it was predictable event: Valencia failed to reinforce its strong, but not great team of around 1980, the key players aged and some were in obvious decline for one or another reason – Mario Kempes was the greatest example.
Real Murcia – 11th with 32 points. Not bad for them, but nothing special either.
RCD Espanol – 10th with 33 points. Middle of the road, as usual.
CD Malaga – 9th with 33 points. Since usually Malaga was an outsider, this season was almost great.
Sevilla FC – 8th with 34 points. Rather typical season.
Real Zaragoza – 7th with 35 point. Like Sevilla, they had typical season – steadily mid-table team.
Real Sociedad – 6th with 37 points. Quite predictably, Real Sociedad was no longer title contender, their great days were over. Predictably, because the team was short to start with and the club had no means to buy additional great players.
Real Betis – 5th with 38 points. They did well this year, but such jumps up were nothing new – Betis was quite capable of suddenly going up for a short time. A team with spirit surely.
Atletico Madrid – 4th with 42 points. Of course, Atletico was not to plummet down – there was no problem to stay ahead of the most of the league, but this squad was not a title contender.
Any club losing the title by a single point will be frustrated, but for Barcelona it was a disaster. A new one, added to quite long list of disasters… what else could be? Menotti was hired to lead them glory, they had Maradona, Schuster, and plethora of Spanish national team players, and 3rd place. True, they fought to the end and came very close to winning, but ended with 48 points instead of 49. Scored most goals (62), received the least (28)… did not matter: no title, the only thing which counts at Camp Nou.
It could be said that the biggest Spanish derby was enacted in entirely negative terms this season: which club was unhappier? May be Real Madrid won this one: they finished 2nd , having the same points as the champions – 49 – and pretty much the same goal-difference. They lost the title only because of 1 goal. And this may have been huge disappointment for Alfredo Di Stefano: very likely he will remain the greatest Real’s player forever, but failed to establish his name as a great coach – not the greatest, just one among the top. The team was perhaps stronger than the one winning the championship, but second best never makes sense in Madrid. Not even when it seems to be a freakish accident – losing the title on one goal worse goal-difference. And in the light of this loss coming ahead of Barcelona was no consolation at all.
One may say Athletic Bilbao was just lucky, but they won the championship and that was that. Did they deserve it? Not a fair question, for it was battle between equal teams, going shoulder to shoulder all the time, the pressure was huge, and it was not a matter of winning the title, but clinching the title. Athletic came 1 point ahead of Barcelona and had 1 goal better goal-difference than Real Madrid – who can blame them? It was typical Basque victory – they did not have megastars like Maradona, Schuster, Stielike, and so on. Traditionally, they had difficulties keeping strong players from the clutches of Real and Barcelona. The rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona left the rivalry between said regions and the Basques well behind – Athletic was technically the underdog, so it was so wonderful to be ahead of the mega-clubs. And Athletic built a great team and enjoyed revival – that in its own terms by now, for the biggest names were in Madrid and Barcelona for many years. True, Clemente built and trained strong team, but it was typical Basque team – tough, gritty fighters, nothing fancy. Soldiers, fighting a war. All the way with the full knowledge that the key players may not be wearing red-and-white shirts next year, so it was now or never. It was now, though, becoming one of the greatest campaign Athletic ever had – this was the 8th title for the club. It was also the second time they had 2 titles in a row – the first time was in the dawn of the Spanish league: the consecutive titles in 1930 and 1931. And there was something more, which may make this season Athletic’s greatest ever – they won a double.