Madrid - The Catalan media have gone into overdrive on Monday in their praise for record-breaking Barcelona. Barca's 2-1 win away to Villarreal on Sunday, which has broken several records, is front-page news in every Catalan paper on Monday morning.
The new records established by Josep Guardiola's slick side are as follows:
- seven consecutive away wins in La Liga (11 including Champions League and King's Cup)
- 41 points amassed in 16 games, the highest ever total in Spain by the Christmas break
- a lead of 10 points over second-placed Sevilla, the biggest ever gap at this stage of the season
- the lowest-ever quantity of goals conceded by a team after 16 games: just 10
"Winter Champions" is the headline in Mundo Deportivo. The Catalan daily points out that Guardiola's team are bound to be top at the halfway stage, since they are 10 points ahead with three games to go.
Mundo Deportivo praises the "tremendous spirit" of Guardiola's team in coming from behind "against a team of the quality of Villarreal."
An online poll in Mundo Deportivo reveals that 68 per cent of readers believe that the "Pep Team", as Guardiola's side is known, will end up beating Real Madrid's 1990 record of 107 league goals in a season (Samuel Eto'o and company have so far scored 48).
The current euphoria among Barca fans is also demonstrated by another online poll in Mundo Deportivo, in which 85 per cent of readers express their belief that Barca will eliminate Olympique Lyon in the round of 16 in the Champions League.
In fact, the "Pep Team" is one of the favourites to win the Champions League this season, according to bookmakers across Europe.
Rival daily paper Sport, for its part, celebrates the return to form of Thierry Henry - who scored the winning goal in Villarreal - and gives special praise to Guardiola for having "transformed" the team in just five memorable months.
Former Barca captain Guardiola, 38, took over from the sacked Frank Rijkaard in July, without having any top-line experience at all.
La Vanguardia, the oldest and most venerable Catalan newspaper, contrasts today's happy situation with that of exactly a year ago. On 23 December 2007 Rijkaard's team lost 1-0 at home to Real Madrid, allowing the whites to open up an eight-point gap.
El Periodico de Catalunya, for its part, points out on Monday that the astonishing run of the "Pep Team" has been "the salvation" of Joan Laporta, the Barca president who was under massive pressure to resign in summer, at the end of the Rijkaard era.
The media in Madrid, understandably, are not quite as enthusiastic as their Catalan counterparts about the "Pep Team".
Even so, sports daily Marca says that Barca is moving "at the rhythm of records", whilst AS points out that the "Pep Team" has "impressively" brushed aside Sevilla, Valencia, Real Madrid and, now, Valencia in consecutive weeks.
