The La Liga title race will be decided Saturday. Barcelona faces Granada at the same time as Real Madrid squares off against Deportivo La Coruña.

 

With a one-point lead in the table, Barcelona will take the title by matching Real Madrid’s result. A draw for Real Madrid and a loss for Barcelona would also give Barca the title, as the Catalan club holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. But draws and losses have been in short supply during the last month for the top clubs in Spain.

 

Barcelona has won its last four matches in the league, while Real is working on an 11-match winning streak. The more realistic expectation, then, is that Barca must win against Granada to secure the title. Granada’s win against Sevilla last weekend guaranteed the Andalusian side will play in La Liga next season, which means Granada no longer has anything but pride riding on the match. Barcelona is heavily favored to win the title, but then again, no win is ever entirely guaranteed. The more complicated question is how we got here.

 

In the middle of March, eight matches ago, Barcelona was up eight points on Atletico Madrid and 12 on Real. Then, over the course of four matches from which Barca took only one point, including a loss in El Clasico, both Madrid sides took the opportunity to storm back into the race. One month later, the lead had vanished entirely and the title race looked like a dead heat.

 

There were two primary causes of Barcelona’s slump. The first and largest was simply finishing. Despite running out lineups with some of the most talented goal-scorers in the world, Barcelona spent four matches unable to find the back of the net. At the same time, its opponents were slamming home chances from every angle.

 

The chances, by expected goals, paint an entirely different story than the scoreline. Barcelona created more than twice as many good chances as its opponents but were outscored by three. The defeat against Valencia that capped Barcelona’s slump was spectacular, as Barca managed only one goal despite 4.1 expected goals. This sort of finishing slump, especially when combined with hot opposition finishing, is highly unlikely to be maintained — even more so given the quality of Barcelona’s forward line. (As I predicted at the time, Barcelona remained strong favorites for the title.)

 

And indeed since the loss to Valencia, Luis Enrique’s club has not only gone undefeated but has dominated matches and rarely looked in any danger of dropping points. This dominance has combined improved chance creation with the sort of spectacular finishing that fans have come to expect from Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar.

 

While Barca has been a little fortunate not to concede a single goal, especially in its 8-0 victory over Deportivo, there is nothing surprising about an undefeated streak when you create five times more good chances than your opponents.

 

In this run, it has been the front three of Messi, Suarez and Neymar leading the way. The forwards have combined for a spectacular 17 goals and 11 assists in four matches. During the slump that put the title back on the line, they scored just one goal and did not complete a single assist. Barcelona has been built to take full advantage of the skills of its forwards, and if they do not produce the club will struggle. By expected goals, it is clear that Messi, Suarez and Neymar were both in a finishing slump and failing to produce at the level expected.

 

It should be noted that 0.6 expected goals and expected assists per 90 minutes is not exactly poor. The graph makes the total look tiny because of how dominant Barca’s forwards have been recently, but for instance Tottenham’s Harry Kane has averaged about 0.6 xG + xA in the last two seasons. Barcelona’s forwards were merely producing at a high level, but short of their world elite expectation.

 

Neither the finishing slump nor the slowdown in chance production were likely to be maintained. So long as Messi, Suarez and Neymar do not all lose their form at once, again, it is likely that Barcelona will secure the title this weekend.