Dani Alves: Real Madrid are lucky we woke up late. The points gap has widened since Xavi joined

Barcelona defeated Real Sociedad on Thursday night to break a two-game losing streak. Dani Alves was even so encouraged by the win that he gave Real Madrid a long-distance nudge. But his words are not backed up by numbers.

Since the arrival of Xavi and the new reinforcements, Barcelona has started to regain its face. It hasn’t lost several games in a row, climbed to second place in the table and, most importantly, beat Real Madrid 4-0 on its pitch.

The Catalans began to believe they were back in the league title race. They thought that the embarrassing defeat would sink Los Blancos and that Barcelona would win everything by the end of the league. But the exact opposite happened. Real gradually proved that El Clásico was a one-off mistake, winning all four league games, including tough duels at Celta Vigo, Osasuna and Sevilla, and advancing to the Champions League semi-finals over Chelsea.

Barcelona just didn’t celebrate their success. They were knocked out of the Europa League by Frankfurt and also lost to Cadiz, virtually throwing away their title chances. These were only theoretical, the Merengues now only need to get 4 points out of the 15 that are in play to win the title.

The Blaugranas could have brought Real closer to the title, but they postponed the celebrations in Madrid’s Cibeles Square thanks to a 1-0 win against Real Sociedad. That motivated Dani Alves enough to take on Real Madrid.

“They are lucky we woke up so late. We would have competed with them in a completely different way, but that’s life. They were lucky we didn’t arrive earlier (reinforcements) and we had to make a huge effort. Now we have to go for the next goal. They are lucky we didn’t start playing like this earlier,” Alves said in a post-match interview.

A strange statement when you look at the deeper context. When Xavi arrived, Barcelona were 10 points behind Real Madrid, currently it’s 15 points. If they win their playoff game, it will be 12 points, which is still more than when Xavi arrived. So Alves probably didn’t think twice about his statement.

And that didn’t sit well with the Barcelona coach himself, Xavi. “Today is not the day to brag,” he said of Alves’ statement.

Source: Movistar, El Chirinquito