Gerard Pique is spraying the champagne about. Not that Barcelona can celebrate too much. Their season isn’t over yet. They still have the Copa del Rey and Champions League finals to come. Are they going to win the Treble? It certainly looks like it. Thanks for reading and emailing. Night.
Barcelona were crowned La Liga champions thanks to Lionel Messi’s winner at the Vicente Calderon
Updated
Sun 17 May 2015 14.54 EDT
First published on Sun 17 May 2015 12.00 EDTLive feed
Key events
Barcelona’s players are in a huge huddle in the middle of the pitch. Finally they can celebrate. They’ve won the league with a game to spare. It’s not to be for Real Madrid. They did their bit, beating Espanyol 4-1, but it’s too little, too late. Lionel Messi scored the title-winning goal. What a player.
FULL-TIME: ATLETICO MADRID 0-1 BARCELONA! BARCELONA ARE THE CHAMPIONS!
It’s over! Barcelona have won La Liga! Phase one of their Treble mission is complete!
90 min+3: Tempers are boiling over. Now Siqueira and Messi are booked.
90 min+2: Barcelona have a free-kick deep in Atletico territory. They’re almost there. The players in the dug-out are like coiled springs. They can hardly wait. Barcelona are wasting time now. They take their sweet time over the free-kick and Neymar is booked for timewasting. Diego Godin snaps. He would quite like to have a brawl with Neymar, who happily skips off into the distance while his team-mates keep Godin away from him.
90 min+1: Cristiano Ronaldo has scored a hat-trick. He’s absurd. It’s Espanyol 1-4 Real Madrid.
90 min: The free-kick looks like it’s made for the right foot of Neymar. But that fails to factor in the left foot of Messi. He curls the ball towards the bottom-left corner, but Oblak pushes it away. There will be three minutes of stoppage time.
89 min: A Barcelona counter ends with Gimenez bringing Neymar down 25 yards from goal. He’s booked. He completely missed the ball.
88 min: Bravo punches Koke’s corner away. That’s great goalkeeping. The ball is lobbed back into the area, but it ends up in Bravo’s grateful grasp. He clutches the ball like it’s an old friend.
87 min: Siqueira would like to see the title go down to the wire. His piledriver from 25 yards is destined for the top corner until Bravo tips it over the bar.
87 min: Rafinha Alcantara replaces Ivan Rakitic.
86 min: Siqueira drives to the byline on the left and hangs a cross to the far post. Mandzukic tees up Koke, but his shot is blocked. These are nervy moments.
85 min: Five minutes.
83 min: Cristiano Ronaldo has scored again. It’s Espanyol 1-3 Real Madrid. But it could all be in vain. Madrid still need a favour from Atletico.
82 min: One legend replaces another for Barcelona. Xavi replaces Andres Iniesta. One is given a standing ovation by the entire stadium as he leaves the pitch, the other is given one as he enters it.
80 min: Jeremy Mathieu replaces Jordi Alba. Saul Niguez replaces Fernando Torres. Barcelona are 10 minutes plus stoppage time away from the title.
79 min: But wait! Real Madrid lead again! Marcelo has made it 2-1.
77 min: Pedro stings a shot inches past the left post from 20 yards. Barcelona still can’t find a clincher.
76 min: The Espanyol goal means that Barcelona would win the league even if Atletico equalise.
74 min: Espanyol have equalised against Real Madrid! A terrible mistake from Keylor Navas leads to a calamitous equaliser from Christian Stuani. Navas took too long to clear the ball, had his pocket picked and the ball ended up in the back of the Real Madrid net. Oh dear.
72 min: Arda Turan knocks a shot over from 20 yards. It’s not over yet. That’s his final contribution. Mario Mandzukic is on in his place.
71 min: The Barcelona celebrations should be starting already, but this is a terrible miss from Neymar. Rakitic broke through the middle and located Messi on the right. He scampered inside, on to that left foot, and looked like he was on a one-man mission - but instead he decided to set up Neymar. He could see the whites of Jan Oblak’s eyes but he leant back and blasted the ball miles over the bar! What a miss.
69 min: Barcelona want this title wrapped up. The goal has freed their minds. They’ve loosened up. Messi dinks a pass to Iniesta on the left. He controls on his chest and looks for Neymar, whose flick flashes just past the near post.
67 min: Atletico replace Mario Suarez with Raul Garcia. By the way, that was Lionel Messi’s 54th goal of the season.
GOAL! Atletico Madrid 0-1 Barcelona (Messi, 65 min)
Cristiano Ronaldo asked the question. How’s this for an answer from Lionel Messi? It had to be him. The deadlock has been broken. At last. The tension has been blasted away and this is a wonderful goal from the best player in the world. Messi finally had a yard of space on the edge of the area. He assessed his options and then rolled a pass through to Pedro, who showed great composure to play it straight back to Messi. He took a touch, trained his sights on the bottom-left corner and picked his spot with a clinical low left-footed shot! This could be the goal that wins Barcelona the league. It had to be Messi.
62 min: Barcelona look like they’re stepping it up, but Atletico’s workrate shows no sign of dropping.
59 min: Real Madrid have scored! Cristiano Ronaldo - who else? - has given them the lead against Espanyol and now Barcelona need a goal if they are going to finish this league tonight. They don’t look like they’re scoring at the moment.
58 min: It’s still Espanyol 0-0 Real Madrid.
56 min: Arda overcommits and sends Messi flying in the middle. He escapes without a booking.
55 min: Atletico take a free-kick quickly and Torres streams into the area, but he snatches at the shot and hits it straight at Bravo. Mascherano took a whack on the shin in his attempts to tackle Torres and will need some treatment.
54 min: Neymar crosses. Godin almost heads it out of Oblak’s hands. “Anyone else think that David De Gea’s injury today was a phantom knock developed to get home early and get his feet up for this and the Real game?” says Justin Kavanagh.
53 min: Koke is booked for a cynical grab of Messi’s shirt.
52 min: Diego Godin, the Atletico hero on this day last year, nuts a free header over the bar from the resulting corner.
51 min: Juanfran’s cross is headed behind by Pique. Torres was lurking.
49 min: Rakitic bursts through the middle, zigzagging away from his markers, but Pedro’s return ball is too strong. Atletico counter and bombard Barcelona in the air. There’s an appeal for a penalty when the ball drops and falls on Iniesta’s outstretched arm, before he falls to the floor after the ball is booted into his face. Oh dear. Eventually Griezmann shoots. Pique deflects it wide.
47 min: Rakitic’s corner is cleared as far as Pique, whose shot from 18 yards is deflected wide. Another corner. Atletico deal with it again.
46 min: Off we go again. Are Barcelona going to win the title tonight? We’ll know in 45 minutes. A win guarantees it. They want a win. Messi wins a corner on the left. “Enrique should get serious credit for the fact that not all of Alves’ crosses are any longer Bebesque,” says Philip Podolsky. “He’s been launching silly amounts of those in the last couple of seasons and it had to stop. Maybe has to do with Enrique’s having been a wonderful crosser of the ball with both his feet.”
Half-time: Atletico Madrid 0-0 Barcelona
Barcelona are drawing, but so are Real Madrid. As it stands, Barcelona are 45 minutes from winning the league.
45 min: Alves spanks a wobbler towards the top from 30 yards. Oblak’s fingertips save the day for Atletico.
44 min: It would probably help Barcelona’s cause if Pedro had the ball less and Messi and Neymar had it more.
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