Barca not taking winning run for granted, says Valverde
Barcelona must appreciate matching the club's record of nine wins and a draw in their first 10 games of a Liga campaign, especially after Real Madrid's defeat at Girona, coach Ernesto Valverde told a news conference on Monday.
Barca rode their luck to beat Athletic Bilbao 2-0 away on Saturday to maintain a four-point gap at the top of the table, thanks to an outstanding display from goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen and a Raul Garcia shot that bounced off the bar.
On Sunday, Spanish and European champions Real blew a 1-0 halftime lead to lose 2-1 against Girona, who are playing in the top flight for the first time in their 87-year history.
Real are now eight points behind their arch-rivals.
Barca won 3-0 at Girona last month and only dropped points in a 1-1 draw at Atletico Madrid. They also have a perfect record in the Champions League and could reach the last 16 if they win at Valverde's old club Olympiakos Piraeus on Tuesday.
"La Liga is really difficult," Valverde said ahead of the Group D game in Athens.
"We aren't the only team that has to suffer to win. Madrid lost at Girona and Atletico drew at home (to Villarreal). The points are worth a lot and you have to work very hard to win.
"We all expect to slip up at some point and the distances between teams can increase or decrease, but last weekend shows that we have to really appreciate these victories."
Barca beat Olympiakos 3-1 two weeks ago despite playing the second half with 10 men but Valverde expects a tougher time at the noisy Karaiskakis Stadium, where he is revered for leading the Greek giants to three league titles and two domestic Cups.
"It's very exciting to come back to this stadium again. It means so much to me and I'm looking forward to the game for every reason," added Valverde, who coached Olympiakos between 2008 and 2012 in two separate spells.
"We are playing for the right to qualify from the group, three points are at stake and we get to experience a marvellous atmosphere."
Barca's rampant start to the season contrasts to Olympiakos's dismal run of results. They have lost all three games in the Champions League and on Saturday were beaten 1-0 by fierce city rivals Panathinaikos.
"In Barcelona they played defensively and tried to catch us out but at their place they'll have a huge lift from their fans and they'll want to beat us," Valverde said.
Barca captain Andres Iniesta has a calf injury, Gerard Pique is suspended, while fellow centre back Javier Mascherano, who has travelled to Greece, has been suffering with a fever meaning Thomas Vermaelen could make his first appearance of the season.
Spanish media flay Real after worst start in five years
Real Madrid's first ever trip to Wembley to face Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League on Wednesday will come as a welcome distraction to the European and Liga holders in the midst of their worst domestic run of results in five years.
Sunday's shock 2-1 defeat to Liga newcomers Girona saw them fall eight points behind arch rivals Barcelona in the standings, the biggest gap they have faced with a league leader since their final turbulent campaign under Jose Mourinho in 2012/13.
Madrid were also defending champions in the Portuguese's final campaign but came unstuck at the start of the season, dropping eight points in their first four games while Barcelona raced ahead, eventually finishing 15 clear of Madrid while Mourinho had an acrimonious split with the dressing room.
The feeling in the Spanish sports press after Zinedine Zidane's side threw away a 1-0 lead at halftime was one of resignation about Madrid's faltering campaign, as the 32-times Liga champions have never managed to win the title after falling eight points behind the leaders.
"Madrid vote no to La Liga", ran a headline on the website of daily newspaper Marca, alluding to the political undertones of Sunday's game at Girona, Real's first trip to the troubled region of Catalonia since a banned referendum on independence on Oct. 1 sparked Spain's worst political crisis in 39 years.
Only Madrid's goalscorer Isco and forward Karim Benzema were exempt from criticism in Marca, which criticised the team's usual talisman Cristiano Ronaldo for only scoring once this campaign and called out Marcelo, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric and captain Sergio Ramos for unconvincing displays.
"Isco is out on his own", ran the cover of newspaper AS, while daily ABC described Madrid as "apathetic", calling the defeat the team's worst performance since Zidane took over at the club in January 2016 and began a winning cycle that has yielded seven trophies.
The French coach said Real had lost the game due to two lapses of concentration in the space of four minutes which lead to Cristhian Stuani's equaliser and Portu's winner, but denied there was a problem with the team's attitude.
"What I'm most annoyed about is not killing the game off when we had the chance to do it," the coach said in a news conference after Girona snapped Real's record run of 13 consecutive away wins over the course of two seasons.
"I'm not worried about a lack of intensity nor enthusiasm, these results can happen in the league but we'll keep on working hard. I'm not worried. We didn't expect this after winning four games in a row but we still want to win the league."
