The 2021-22 La Liga season began with the best possible scenario: with its most popular teams claiming wins last week. After Messi's exit from the league, all fans will want to see who will be the player that will pick up the mantle as the best footballer in this league, and last week showed us that there could be a couple of candidates to take that position.
This weekend will see Atlético Madrid showing off their La Liga title in front of their home supporters, while Barcelona and Real Madrid will have to fight to keep their unbeaten status away from home. Let us have a look at how this weekend will shape up in the Spanish Primera División.
La Liga - League standings after Matchday 1
Real Madrid started Carlo Ancelotti's second era with a 4-1 win against Alavés, which was good enough to give them the top spot. The second spot went to Sevilla, who claimed a three-nil victory against the recently promoted Rayo Vallecano. As for Barcelona, Ronald Koeman's team made it past Real Sociedad with a 4-2 score, but even if their win seemed to be comfortable, those final minutes were quite scary for their supporters. Meanwhile, defending champions Atlético claimed all the points in their visit to Celta, although there were some issues for them that did not make that trip as successful as planned.
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Top games to watch
Athletic Club vs Barcelona - The Blaugrana side will face one of the teams that has complicated things for them quite a bit in recent meetings. Athletic Club knows how to beat Los Culés both with and without Messi, and Koeman's men will have to keep that under consideration to avoid suffering complications such as the ones they experienced in last weekend's game. Athletic will be looking for their first goal and win of the season, while Los Blaugranas will want to keep the good form they showed in their first outing.
Atlético Madrid vs Elche - The defending champions go back home to face Elche, a team that seems destined to fight to avoid relegation. Simeone's men struggled a bit to beat Celta last week, but given that Los Colchoneros have beaten their visitors on Sunday in their past six trips to Madrid, then fans could expect to collect three points without breaking a sweat.
Levante vs Real Madrid- The current league leaders will play their second game on the road when they make the trip to Levante. Los Merengues have won four out of their last six games at the Ciutat de Valencia, but the Blaugrana team will not want to go down quietly into the night this time around, especially after not being able to beat Cádiz in their opening game last weekend. This game could also mark Eden Hazard's return to the stadium where everything started going sideways for the Belgian, so it will be interesting to see how he behaves in a stadium where he has experienced nothing but pain.
La Liga - Who's in and who's out for Matchday 1
Atlético Madrid - Injured: Joao Félix. Suspended: Mario Hermoso. Doubtful: Héctor Herrera, Marcos Paulo, Santiago Arias.
Barcelona - Injured: Sergio Agüero, Marc-André Ter Stegen, Ousmané Dembelé, Ansu Fati. Doubtful: Oscar Mingueza, Philippe Coutinho.
Real Madrid - Injured: Dani Ceballos. Doubtful: Toni Kroos, Ferland Mendy, Dani Carvajal, Marcelo.
Sevilla - Injured: Lucas Ocampos. Doubtful: Yassine Bounou, Suso, Ivan Rakitic.
