As LALIGA EA SPORTS pauses for the Christmas break, FC Barcelona sit top of the table. With a four-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid, and with both those clubs having played 18 fixtures, this means Barça are guaranteed to remain top after Matchday 19, the midway stage of the campaign.
Los Azulgranas still have to take on city rivals RCD Espanyol, while Los Blancos will host Real Betis, but no matter what happens in those games Barça will still have the lead.
As such, FC Barcelona already know that they are winter champions, the term given to the team that sit top of the standings at the halfway stage of a league season. This is the 28th time that they’ve secured the winter crown, and they have gone on to lift the LALIGA EA SPORTS trophy on 18 of those previous occasions, which is 67% of the time.
The most recent season when the Catalan outfit completed the winter and summer champions double was in 2022/23. Coached by Xavi Hernández and led by an inspired Robert Lewandowski in his first Spanish season, that Barça squad collected a league-leading 50 points in the first half of the campaign and ultimately finished top on 88 points, 10 points clear of runners-up Real Madrid.
Throughout the history of the competition, which began in 1929 and is now in its 95th season, 52 of the previous 94 winter champions (55%) finished in first place at the end of those seasons. This trend has become even more pronounced in the three-points-per-win era, as 23 of the 30 winter champions (77%) since 1995/96 have ended up lifting the trophy at the end of the year.
Looking across the past decade, there have only been two seasons when the winter champion didn’t finish the job. One of those was, in fact, last term. Atlético de Madrid inched ahead of the competition after 19 matches were played, but Hansi Flick’s FC Barcelona went on to win the championship in the second half of the season. The only other time in the past 10 years when a team stormed back to win the title was in 2019/20, the coronavirus-interrupted season when FC Barcelona were winter champions but Real Madrid went on to win the trophy.
Can FC Barcelona finish the job?
Los Azulgranas will be determined to avoid a repeat of 2019/20. With Real Madrid only four points behind, and holding the head-to-head tiebreaker from their ELCLASICO victory at the Bernabéu, the team from the capital still have an excellent chance to win this year’s title. Villarreal CF and Atlético de Madrid are very much in the mix as well. Diego Simeone’s side are third with 37 points from 18 games, while Villarreal CF are fourth and on 35 points yet they’ve only played 16 fixtures so far.
FC Barcelona will enter 2026 in great form, having won their past eight league matches. They’ve taken 24 points from a possible 24 since losing ELCLASICO, and they’ve looked unstoppable at home since returning to the Spotify Camp Nou, where they’ve won all four league games played so far. If they can keep playing like they have been, they’ll have a great chance of being both winter and summer champions for the 19th time.
