On Sunday night, Barcelona lost 2-1 at home to previously relegation threatened Valencia and went level on points with Atletico Madrid with 5 games still to play.
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Atletico also dumped holders Barca out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage last week, but Fernandez still has full confidence in the players and backed them to flourish under pressure.
“We’re getting closer and closer to La Liga”, Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said.
“The game started [badly] with the difficulties of the [poor] run that we are on… but I think the team had a magnificent response”, said Enrique.
The defeat means Barcelona are now joint-tops with Atletico on 76 points, while Real Madrid are on 75.
The only hardware remaining for Barcelona to win this season is the Copa del Rey and the La Liga.
“If there is a team capable of doing it and much more given what they have done, it is this Barca”, said Enrique. They were further behind a few weeks ago and it was hard, but football and games have tightened the League.
“The luck ended up favoring Valencia”.
Barcelona created 22 efforts on goal including 7 on target, but due to Diego Alves in sensational form for Valencia the only goal Barcelona could find was through Lionel Messi – his 500th career goal.
In the Champions League defeat at Atletico, the three players failed to gel, playing just 12 passes to each other with Messi completing one to Neymar and none to Suarez.
Simeone takes his team to the San Mames to face Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday and has his sights firmly set on victory rather than banking on another bad day for the struggling champions. “It is a capricious sport that allows you to win without barely attacking”, Enrique told a press conference.
With five matches left, Atletico is even with the once-unbeatable Catalan club, and Real Madrid is only one point behind. “We only have one option in our next games, which is to win, win and win”.
“If it doesn’t work out then I will be the first to congratulate who wins the league”.
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Full-back Marcelo believes Real are reaping the rewards of their work in the closing stages of the season, and has called on them to reel off an eighth Liga win on the bounce against fourth-placed Villarreal. It’s in our hands, and we will keep going forward.
