A potential turning point in the title race with the upcoming El Clásico

 Real Madrid struggled, but Barcelona performed adequately.

It all may have turned out very differently.

Last week, Real Madrid managed to hold off Atlético Madrid to earn a point, but FC Barcelona struggled against Almeria. Barcelona's apparently unassailable league lead suffered a setback. The lead was seven points at the start of the day, and it appeared like it would continue to shrink.

Raphinha scored the opening goal for the Catalans against Valencia CF at home, and Sergio Busquets provided a lovely lobbed assist. Yet, things deteriorated rapidly as Barça continued to make critical errors. Ferran Torres attempted a dangerous backpass to evade a throw in. Marc-André ter Stegen attempted to take it down but was only partially successful. Through pure luck, Valencia blew the opportunity that resulted from that. Then Ferran made his situation even worse by missing a penalty.

Jules Koundé and Ronald Araujo got into a mix-up, with the former unnecessarily heading a ball back to the latter, who was not in position to receive. The ball instead went to an attacker and Araujo brought him down, earning himself a red card in the process.

A game that could have been relatively easy turned into an outright nightmare, with only a one goal lead and with more than a half hour to go. But Barça persevered, defending the lead with all they had. It was a win - only just, but three points nonetheless.

Madrid then went to Real Betis, and they thought they had a lead just 12 minutes in. A free kick hit by Karim Benzema seemed to take some sort of deflection and go into the back of the net. He celebrated for a few seconds before the ref informed him it was being checked by VAR. The replay showed that the ball had deflected off a teammate’s arm and into the net, making the action illegal.

After that, both teams had a few chances, but neither could score. It ended 1-1, and so rather than cutting into Barcelona’s lead, Madrid fell further away.

Heading into El clásico, it makes all the difference.

It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which Valencia pull the game level and Madrid find at least one goal. That would have put Madrid just five points away. Instead, they are nine points back of the league leaders.

At five points back, Madrid would be thinking one thing: win in the direct meeting, thus closing the gap to two points. Two points means slipping up with a draw in even just one match offers a chance for you to pull level on points.

Nine points is a completely different scenario. Of course, it’s not insurmountable. It’s only three matches, and Madrid would be thinking one of them was winning el clásico anyway. And let’s not forget there’s a game before that one. Barcelona travel to play Atheltic Bilbao (8th) while Madrid play Espanyol (12th) at home. We could be having a different conversation by this time next week. The Catalans have gone through an injury crisis lately, and now will be without Araujo due to the red card. Not to mention there are other tricky fixtures left after the date with Madrid.

Still, there’s a good chance that looking back, we could see today as a pivotal moment in the title race.