"Dark Horse" Powerless, Barcelona and Real Madrid's Domination Increasingly Difficult to Match in the Spanish League

The 2024-2025 La Liga season increasingly emphasizes the superiority of the two giants, Barcelona and Real Madrid, who are pulling away from the other 18 teams. The transfer policies of these two top teams indicate that their dominance is likely to remain unchallenged for the next decade.

Since the 2014-2015 season or the last 10 seasons, only one season of the Spanish League championship trophy has been won by a team other than Barca or Real. This occurred when Atletico Madrid won the Spanish League title in the 2020-2021 season.

In addition to briefly disturbing the hegemony of those two eternal rivals, Atletico has also finished the season in second place in the 2018-2019 and 2017-2018 campaign competitions. In both editions, Barca lifted the Spanish championship trophy.

"Los Rojiblancos," also known as the Red and White, a nickname for Atletico, has also witnessed one of the fiercest top-three rivalries in the last decade. This moment occurred in the 2015-2016 season. Atletico, sitting in third place, was only three points behind Barca, who dominated the top of the standings.

However, Atletico can no longer pursue the dominance of Barca and Real in the last four seasons. The duo of the best teams in Spain have alternated in sharing two trophies. Real won in 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, while the "Blaugrana" became champions in 2022-2023 and 2024-2025.

In total, over six seasons in the last decade, the point gap between the third-ranked team and the champion has reached double digits, meaning more than 10 points. This condition illustrates the disparity in team quality between Barca and Real and their competitors in the top-tier competition of the "Land of the Matador."

The hope for the presence of three "suns" in the competition for the La Liga championship title this season emerged at the end of the first half. Real and Atletico were vying for the top of the standings after successfully displacing Barca, which had held the first position from the first week until the fifteenth week.

Atletico is the first team to displace Barca at the top. They sit in first place after defeating Barca 2-1 at the Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium in the 16th week match.

This season is truly the greatest opportunity for Atletico to disrupt the dominance of Barca and Real. They have become the most active team in the Spanish League during the transfer market.

Subsequently, Los Rojiblancos dropped to second place a week later, but they were able to reclaim the top position in the standings in the 18th week. Unfortunately, Atletico displayed inconsistency after the New Year, thus only becoming a shadow of Barca and Real.

Real occupies the top position in the standings this season in week 17. They recorded a trend of sitting at the top for the longest duration, specifically from week 19 to week 22.

Since week 23, Barca has regained control of the top of the standings as their rivals have failed to secure victories consistently. The Blaugrana clinched their 28th La Liga title when they entered week 36, leaving two matches remaining.

Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone acknowledged that inconsistency has been a problem for his team in maintaining competition at the top of the standings. However, the Argentine tactician was reluctant to blame his players as the main cause of the decline in performance in the second half of this season.

"I am the coach, so I have responsibility for the team's failure to perform well. I was unable to inspire them to perform better, especially in away games," Simeone said after his team lost to Osasuna 0-2, Friday (16/5/2025) early morning WIB, reported by Marca.

Other teams, such as Athletic Bilbao, Villarreal, and Real Betis, can only participate in the competition for the top five spots for tickets to the UEFA Champions League. Meanwhile, three teams that once caused surprises in Spain, such as Valencia, Real Sociedad, and Sevilla, have fallen out of the top ten positions.

This season is truly the greatest opportunity for Atletico to disrupt the dominance of Barca and Real. They have become the most active team in the Spanish League during the transfer market.

Simeone recruited four key players, namely Julia Alvarez, Conor Gallagher, Robin Le Normand, and Alexander Sorloth, in order to reduce the quality gap with the two biggest rivals in Spain.

Atletico spent 185 million euros, or approximately 3.42 trillion rupiah. No other Spanish team has spent more than 60 million euros in the two transfer windows this season.

With better finances than Barca and Real, Atletico still failed to compete with those two teams. Barca, for instance, only brought in Dani Olmo as an addition to the main squad, acquired for 55 million euros (IDR 1.01 trillion) from RB Leipzig.

Furthermore, Barca must take the appeal route to overturn the decision of La Liga, the operator of the Spanish League, which prohibits the registration of Olmo due to ongoing financial issues surrounding the Blaugrana.

Real also did not incur transfer expenses as they brought in Kylian Mbappe at no cost. The "Los Blancos" made savings by tightening expenditures after renovating the Bernabeu Stadium.

Amid financial constraints, both teams have shifted their focus on team formation by relying on homegrown academy players. Barca has given rise to a new phenomenon through Lamine Yamal, while Marc Casado, Fermin Lopez, and Pau Cubarsi are the new backbone of Barca for the present and future.

Similarly, Real is also demonstrating this intent. Players such as Jude Bellingham, Arda Guler, and Raul Asencio show Los Blancos' commitment to building a team with a young squad. The transition of coaching from Carlo Ancelotti to Xabi Alonso will not alter Real's perspective on relying on young players, including the acquisition of new players under the age of 25.

Barca coach Hans-Dieter "Hansi" Flick stated that the young squad possessed by Barca is equipped with extraordinary individual skills. On the other hand, Flick also appreciates the willingness of his players to continue improving throughout this season.

"Their attitude and mindset are always positive. I have seen their great desire during the preseason training sessions. We have a different philosophy in attacking, and the team has adapted well," said Flick, who delivered three domestic trophies in his first season at Barca.

Espanyol coach Manolo Gonzalez has tipped his hat to the influence Flick has had on Barca's young squad. "Their coach's ability is to channel hunger into the players. Barca's players have the same ambition," he was quoted as saying by Mundo Deportivo.

This season's competition increasingly reflects that dark horse teams will find it more difficult to compete with Barcelona and Real. La Liga is not friendly to surprises...