Madrid wins La Liga 3 points ahead of Barca. Madrid, Barca, Atleti, and Sevilla will head to UCL next year while Villareal and Sociedad head to EL. Granada, Osasuna, and Gijon are going down. Levante and Girona are going up. While the EPL had a glut of teams all close together from 8-18, La Liga was more uneven with tiers emerging throughout the table. 1-13 were all pretty strong IMO. Celta was in the EL semis and has several players that will filter up to the bigger clubs in the coming years, Valencia is still a club with cachet although they are still trying to find their old form under Lim, etc. While Gijon was much better than their woeful relegation mates, they were not nearly as good as Las Palmas, Betis, Depor, or Leganes. Eibar continues to kickass while drawing about 5K to each match. Messi ran away with the Pichichi with 37 goals, followed by Suarez with 29, and CRon with 25. Other notables include Aspas with 19, Griezmann with 16, Aduriz who refuses to age with 16, Morata with 15 coming off the bench mostly, Sandro with 14, Neymar with 13, Gameiro with 12, and Benzema with 11. Suarez, Kroos, Neymar, Marcelo, Messi, Correa, Griezmann, Isco, and Koke were all in the top 10 for assists.
This should be an interesting offseason for the top 3. Beginning with Madrid, I expect Pepe, Coentrao, James, and Morata to move on. Lucas Vazquez is a fine backup for Benz and Isco and Asensio have passed James. With the team in pretty good shape up and down the roster, I don't expect them to make too many moves. Perhaps grab another FB. At Barca, I expect Mathieu and Arda to shove off. I expect Masche will be happy being the third CB behind Pique as Umtiti becomes a regular. Barca need to find another RB to push or get in front of Vidal, who will be coming back from major injury. That will also free Sergi to move into MF where he's needed. Hopefully, he and Gomes can provide some breathers to Busquets who had a down season. I still think Rakitic is world class and Denis could get there soon with PT, but I wouldn't be surprised if they make a big move for Verratti (or Coutinho). I think Barca will roll with SNM for another season under Valverde before deciding a real succession plan. Atleti could be headed for rough waters. I think Griezmann is gone. While I love Correa and Vietto, I think that's a big order for the Argentines, Carrasco, and Gameiro (and Torres!). This core is getting old, with Gabi, Juanfran, Fernandez, Luis, Godin and Gameiro all 30+. Fortunately, Savic, Koke, Saul, and the rest of the squad is very young and is a solid core. I honestly have no idea what Sevilla and the other clubs will do.
