Primera Division. The real thing. Real Zaragoza had uncharacteristic strong season, but Real Madrid’s comeback was something else – they made new incredibly strong squad and dominated the championship by far. At the bottom – one weak outsider. Thus, the drama was somewhat secondary – fights for escaping relegation and winning 2nd place.
Celta was very weak and settled at the bottom early. Last and out with 14 points.
Hercules fought as they could, but was relegated at the end – 17th with 22 points. Mario Kempes was with them this season, but he was already a pale shadow of the great player he was less than 10 years ago.
Ironically, the club which went to the top with Kempes at his prime, went down with him – Valencia was 16th with 25 points. Who would believe it a few years back – Valencia going to Second Division. But somewhat Valencia was unable to maintain strong team when they were successful. Wrong decisions led to gradual weakening and eventual free fall into relegation.
Cadiz, normally a prime candidate for relegation, managed to survive – 15th with 26 points.
Osasuna was also relieved at the end – 14th with 27 points.
Las Palmas also escaped relegation – 13th with 27 points, ahead of Osasuna on better head-to-head record.
Racing Santander – 12th with 31 points.
Espanol – 11th with 31 points.
Real Valladolid – 10th with 32 points.
Sevilla – still a mid-table club. 9th with 34 points. Standing from left: Alvarez, Manolo Zambrano, Serna, Jimenez, Sanabria, Francisco. Crouching: Buyo, Nimo, Estella, Jose Luis Ruda, Carlos Amaro Nadal.
Real Betis – 8th with 35 points. Not a bad season – they reached the Copa de la Liga final and this is the team which faced Barcelona at it. Standing from left: Cervantes, Diego, Calderon, Quico, Alex, Ortega. Front: Parra, Hadzibegic, Gabino, Medina, Romo.
Real Sociedad – their great years ended and slowly going down the scale. 7th with 37 points.
Sporting Gijon – still running strong: 6th with 41 points.
Atletico Madrid – clinched UEFA Cup spot: 5th with 42 points. Overall, good season for a relatively weakened squad – reached the Cup Winners Cup final, but lost it. Not playing larger role in the Spanish championship was another blow – from fan’s perspective. On the other hand… they lost Hugo Sanchez and still managed to stay in the upper part of the league.
Real Zaragoza – 4th with 42 points. Strong and successful season, a revival of a kind after years of relative obscurity.
Athletic Bilbao – strong, but good only for 3rd place with 43 points.
Barcelona – distant 2nd behind the champions with 45 points. Once again, it was slightly weaker team compared to the squad of the arch-enemy.
It is pointless to count Real’s title – more important was their comeback to dominance with new formidable squad, the ‘vulture squadron’. Incredible talent, which garnished domestic success with winning again the UEFA Cup. Real hopes were growing – for coming back to international dominance. The championship strongly nourished such hopes: Barcelona was left 11 points behind and there was not even a point of mentioning other rivals. 26 wins, 4 ties, just 4 lost games, 83-33 scoring record. Outscoring by far all others and also having third-best defensive record, but that mattered little – the main point was that the team was playing attacking football and scored plenty of goals: that was the true Real’s way to the purists.