Courtois entrusts himself to Atlético

Madrid is still in time to capture all the awards in this League. He has the big game trophy: the title, which he won with an unusual notice of four days. The Pichichi will go to Benzema and the 27 goals he credits, nine goals more than Iago Aspas. Ancelotti’s team is in a fight with Villarreal to win the fair play classification of the championship (the groguets take a point from them, in an honor that the whites last achieved in the 2017-18 season). Y Courtois still has options to get Zamora as the goalkeeper with the fewest goals, although he needs an unexpected ally: Atlético.

The Belgian’s greatest rival is Sevilla player Bono, who will face the rojiblancos the next day. The Madrid goalkeeper has conceded 29 goals in 35 games played, an average of 0.83 goals per game. The Sevilla goalkeeper has received 23 in 30 games, 0.77 on average. Rulli (Villarreal, 0.87) and Remiro (Real Sociedad, 0.88) have much more remote options.

Courtois will only play the last league game against Betis, Ancelotti announced in the post-match against Levante. If Tibu does not fit against the Verdiblanco team, he will finish the season with an average of 0.8056. And we put four decimals because the award can be decided by that minimum margin of ten thousandths. To take the trophy Courtois needs Bono to concede three goals if he plays the remaining two games (he would get 0.813) or, if he only plays one of them, to concede two goals. In that case, the defender from Seville would finish the League with an average of 0.8065. Zamora would be resolved in favor of Courtois by a margin of 0.0009 goals per game. A Zamora of photo finish. If Courtois doesn’t keep a clean sheet in the last game of the championship, he will need Bono to concede one more goal for every goal he concedes.

A face to face that has been tightened in the end

The fight for Zamora has been open in the last two months, since the beginning of March. Until the match against Alavés, Bono had maintained an average of around 0.55 goals per game, with minimums of up to 0.4 in some stretches of the season. The Nervionense team goalkeeper kept a clean sheet in 12 of the first 22 games he played (12 goals conceded). In his next eight games, he has conceded 11 goals and has only been able to lock the goal in the last match, against Mallorca. After Atlético, Sevilla faces Athletic on the last matchday.

Courtois has followed the opposite path. He did not start the League with good numbers. He managed just three clean sheets in his first 14 games. Later chained two streaks of four games without conceding: against Athletic, Real Sociedad, Atlético and Cádiz, the first. The second, against Granada, Villarreal, Alavés and Rayo Vallecano (the entire Madrid league calendar in February). He managed to lower his average below 0.8, but he still drags the burden of the four goals he received in the Clásico. Zamora is in his hands… and in those of Atlético.