This is going to be the shortest preview ever, given that there’s less than 2 hours until the match starts and, hey – did you hear that, yesterday, Espanyol early gifted Barça the Liga, and Iniesta a birthday present?

The latter, as reader Vj commented on Twitter, was made more poignant by the fact that the Espanyol goal was scored in the 21st minute which is always celebrated by the Pericos fans in memory of their beloved late captain, Dani Jarque, who was also Iniesta’s good friend.

That last sentence was long and I’m not going to fix it. I’m going to blame it on the sublime bottle of white Priorat and the other bottle of Juvé & Camps cava that were imbibed over lunch with our gorgeous Catalan neighbours, who took us out for a belated Anniversary lunch, as well as to celebrate the Liga win. The food? Equally sublime. Seafood paella, bacalao, chipirones and delicious postres. I’m fit to burst. At least I’m still awake. Someone else went to bed to sleep it off.

Anyway – there’s a match.  In Madrid.  Supposedly Falcao isn’t playing because Simeone is resting him for the CdR match on Friday.  Quite rightly too, as this game is a bit of a non-event in terms of affecting any results. Atléti sits in 3rd place on the Liga table, 9 points adrift of Real Madrid. With only 2 games left to play (both Madrid teams played mid-week games last week so they have played one more game than most of the teams), Atléti can’t catch up to Madrid, and they are in a very comfortable 3rd place with Valencia and Depor currently battling for 4th some 10 points behind.

So who gets to play?

Maybe a whole lotta players who haven’t had a lot of game time over the season.  Or maybe Tito is still serious about getting that 100 points for the season. To do that, they need to win the remaining 4 games.

Tito’s taken the whole team to Madrid because they have something to celebrate and it wouldn’t be fair if anyone missed out on the festivities.

VV and Abidal miss the game through injury and join JDS in the stands. Or perhaps he’ll actually get a run out.

Part of me wants the win tonight just to prove that we didn’t need any help to achieve it this weekend. Another part of me just couldn’t care less.

Anyway, sit back, relax and just enjoy the Liga victory.

This team has been through so much again this season and some silverware is the bonus.

Thank you for everything, team.  Well, maybe not for the grey hairs.

Thank you to Tito and Roura and all the team management.

Thank you to Abidal and Tito for still being with us.

Thanks for another year of memories.

¡Visca Barça! ¡Visca Catalunya!

The game kicks off at 19:00 CET – that’s soon.

Click here to convert the match time to your timezone: Atlético Madrid vs. FC Barcelona

Streams for the match are usually found on First Row, Roja Directa and Bar TV.