Barcelona’s Record Chase Halted by Alaves
The party stopped in Vitoria.
Three days after wrapping up back-to-back La Liga titles and parading through Barcelona on an open-top bus, Hansi Flick’s newly crowned champions saw their pursuit of the mythical 100-point mark cut short by a team fighting for its life.
Alaves, bruised but unbowed in a relegation scrap, beat Barça 1-0 thanks to Ibrahim Diabate’s strike in first-half stoppage time – a goal that might yet define their season.
Champions on cruise, Alaves on edge
Flick knew the equation: three games, three wins, and Barcelona would join the select group to hit 100 points. Instead, his side stumbled at the first step, undone by a hungrier opponent and their own lack of edge.
The German coach rotated heavily after Sunday’s Clasico triumph. Twenty-one-year-old centre-back Alvaro Cortes was handed his debut, one of several changes as Flick looked to reward youth and manage legs in a squad still basking in title glow.
It showed. Barcelona had the ball, as they almost always do. They moved it, probed, recycled. Marcus Rashford, full of running on the flank, tried to inject tempo and directness. But the sharpness that ripped apart Real Madrid at the weekend never truly surfaced.
Alaves, by contrast, played like a side staring into the abyss.
Quique Sanchez Flores set his team up to suffer, and they did – compact, aggressive, clearing their lines, contesting every duel. Each tackle carried the urgency of a club hovering near the trapdoor. Every clearance was greeted like a goal.
Diabate strikes, Barça sleep
The pressure on Barcelona’s back line finally told in the most basic of ways.
On the stroke of half-time, a corner swung into the box caused chaos. Antonio Blanco rose, nodded the ball back towards goal, and for a split second the champions switched off. Diabate did not. He pounced, lashed his finish past Wojciech Szczesny, and Vitoria erupted.
Barça’s defenders reacted a beat too late. In a relegation fight, that beat is the difference between despair and hope.
Flick, speaking afterwards, acknowledged the battle his side had walked into, pointing to Alaves’ fight for survival and, from his perspective, the positives of blooding youngsters and managing minutes. The title is already in his pocket; the record, now, is not.
Szczesny keeps it close, but Barça blunt
If Barcelona expected the second half to turn into a siege, Alaves had other ideas.
Diabate almost doubled the lead shortly after the restart, driving at the defence and forcing Szczesny into a strong save. The Polish goalkeeper’s outstretched hand kept Barça within touching distance.
The champions, though, never quite found a way through. There were phases of control, stretches of possession, but little incision. The final ball lacked conviction, the runs came half a second too late, and Alaves grew in belief with every clearance.
Jon Guridi came within inches of killing the contest, drilling a low effort across Szczesny that beat the keeper but cannoned back off the post. By then, Barcelona were clinging more to structure than threat.
When the final whistle went, Alaves had their prize: three points and daylight. They climbed out of the drop zone and up to 15th, their survival hopes suddenly brighter. Barcelona, meanwhile, walked off with the title secure but the record chase over, undone by a team that simply needed it more.
Sevilla roar back from the brink
Earlier in the day, another club in trouble found a different kind of response.
Sevilla, drifting dangerously close to the relegation battle in recent months, produced a rousing comeback to beat high-flying Villarreal 3-2 and haul themselves towards safety.
It started badly. Very badly. Gerard Moreno and Georges Mikautadze struck inside 20 minutes to put third-placed Villarreal 2-0 up, the kind of early avalanche that has buried Sevilla more than once this season.
This time, they refused to fold.
Oso dragged them back into the contest, and Kike Salas levelled before the break, turning a likely rout into a fight. The momentum swung, the belief returned, and in the 72nd minute Akor Adams completed the turnaround, drilling home a winner that could reshape Sevilla’s campaign.
The victory – their third in a row – lifted them to 10th, four points clear of the drop zone, and came in a week dominated by talk of their former defender Sergio Ramos reportedly closing in on a takeover bid alongside an investment firm. On the pitch, at least, Sevilla suddenly look like a club rediscovering its pulse.
Salas called the feeling “indescribable,” a raw reflection of a squad finally giving something back to a fanbase that has suffered all season.
Espanyol break the curse
In Barcelona’s shadow, Espanyol have been living a different kind of nightmare.
Eighteen games without a win. Not a bad run. A crisis.
That ended at last with a 2-0 home victory over Athletic Bilbao, their first triumph of 2026. The goals came after the break, Pere Milla opening the scoring before Kike Garcia struck late to seal it. When the second went in, coach Manolo Gonzalez could not hold back his emotions; tears welled as months of frustration finally broke.
He did not sugarcoat it. The winless stretch, he said, had been one of the worst experiences of his professional and personal life.
This result, though, changes the mood. Espanyol climbed to 14th, three points clear of the bottom three, and suddenly the trip to Pamplona to face Osasuna on Sunday carries a different energy. Gonzalez made it clear: no sitting back, no playing it safe. Momentum is a rare thing in a relegation fight. When you find it, you run with it.
Mallorca sink, Getafe dream
For Mallorca, the night brought only more anxiety.
A 3-1 defeat at Getafe left them stuck in 17th, still looking anxiously over their shoulder. Getafe, meanwhile, moved closer to a spot in the Conference League places, their European ambition no longer a fantasy but a realistic target as the season winds down.
At both ends of the table, the stakes sharpen with every game. Barcelona’s title is already secured, but for Alaves, Sevilla, Espanyol, Mallorca and the rest, each whistle now sounds like a verdict.
Some are starting to escape. Others are still trapped in the storm.
