The Beginner’s Guide to La Liga’s Last Day

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The English Premier League is now done and dusted with its oh-so-riveting final day of drama and no-one really cares about boring old Serie A, anyway - apart from the excellent Serie Aaaargh of course - so there might be a few newbies looking to la Liga this weekend for their footballing fix.

The game in Spain has one more round of matches to go and the big finale is so pant-wettingly exciting that only one clash out of ten is completely meaningless. Naturally, that involves Deportivo.

So for those who donâÂÂt know their Málaga from their Mallorca, their Míchel from their Manuel Pellegrini, hereâÂÂs a handy beginnerâÂÂs guide on who to cheer and who to cheer - well, jeer really - over the wonderful weekend to come.

2nd Real Madrid, 95 pts: Málaga (A)

4th Sevilla, 60 pts: Almería (A)

About 37 times less fun to watch than the Sevilla side of Juande Ramosâ day, the current squad manages the admirable feat of being functional on the pitch and dysfunctional off it.

Qualifying for the Champions League would save Sevilla from a few financial issues that are beginning to rack up and it may give club president, José María del Nido, something to smile about if he is sent to the slammer for 13 years over the summer should things go Pete Tong during his ongoing corruption trial.

Having Mallorca in next seasonâÂÂs Champions League would be a complete waste of time. The Balearic side would make AtléticoâÂÂs three point haul from this season look heroic in comparison.

MallorcaâÂÂs success this season has been built on the goals of Aritz Aduriz, a striker who the club have âÂÂpaid forâ by giving very bouncy cheques to Athletic Bilbao.

6th - Getafe, 55 pts: Atlético (A)

Qualification for the Europa League would surely prove that LLL was completely wrong in its assertion that manager, Míchel, was a coaching half-wit who only gets a gig âÂÂcos he has a âÂÂpurtyâ face and was a decent player back in the day. And this can never happen.

For the players the club possesses (Nilmar, Rossi, Cazorla, Capdevila, for PeteâÂÂs sake) and the terrific talent available, Villarreal have made the biggest of hashes of their campaign.

Why should a neutral go to the energy of supporting Valladolid when not even their own fans bother to? SaturdayâÂÂs crunch home game against Racing was played in front of half empty stands.

Valladolid are to La Liga what West Brom are to the Premier League. Absolutely no-one notices them when they are there or gives a flying fig when theyâÂÂre not. Besides, the city is as cold as the Arctic for about 10 months of the year.

The club that allowed Sergio Canales to pose in a Real Madrid shirt and kiss the clubâÂÂs badge WHILST HE WAS STILL A RACING PLAYER deserves their end of season stress-fest.

The blog will be cheering them on, anyway, just to see la LigaâÂÂs best goal celebration - Mohamed Tchite scoring and running back to the centre-spot with the ball due to the constant knack of Racing for finding themselves 4-0 down at the time.

18th - Málaga, 36 pts: Real Madrid (H)

Málaga were a wonderful, attacking side last year, but since Juan Ramón López Muñiz took over, the team has been a fouling, football-free zone. Nevertheless, there is still a spark of delight in the squad worth rooting for with the likes of Duda still about.

How can a team that isnâÂÂt even in Spain (in LLLâÂÂs world), resides in a different climatic zone, and is an hour behind everyone else be playing in la Liga anyway? Then again, the city of Seville is about 25 years behind the rest of the country and still has two teams in la Liga.

Xerez surviving for another season would take such astronomical odds that the seas would boil and legions of spear-throwing archangels would fly down from the heavens to purge the world of filthy human-kind. And thatâÂÂs probably a bad thing.

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