Madrid Take Six Point Liga Lead After Getafe Shock Barça

Plucky Madrid minnows Getafe managed to hold on for a narrow 1-0 win over an out-of-sorts Barcelona side at the Alfonso Pérez on Saturday.  With Real Madrid sailing past Atléti earlier in the day, the blancos took a commanding six-point lead at the top of the La Liga table over their Catalan rivals.  

A second-half header from Juan Valera off of a corner from Madrid youth product Pablo Sarabia (we still retain a buy-back clause on him) and some tenacious defending was enough to stymie Pep Guardiola's team, who looked a shadow of their usual selves.  As Barcelona pressed in the second half looking for a late equalizer, they put the ball in the net only for it to be ruled out in a narrow offsides call.  In the end, Messi was unable to do it all by himself as he often does and the Azulones claimed a historic win.

This means that, assuming Madrid beats Sporting Gijón in the next round of matches, the capital side will be at the top of the table no matter what the result against Barcelona in the first Clásico at the Bernabéu.  Further, assuming that the two sides drop an equal number of points or none at all for the rest of the season, Barcelona would need to win both Clásicos in order to win the league.  

A win for Madrid in the Clásico, a definite possibility given the trajectory of the two sides at the present moment and the sharp contrast in their form, would almost certainly spell an end to the Catalan club's title hopes, leaving them nine points behind with half the season remaining.  Such a lead, while surmountable, would require a collapse of epic proportions on the part of a thus-far remarkably consistent Madrid outfit to overturn.