Jose Mourinho was exhausted. You could see it on his face by May 2012. He had spent two years trying to dismantle the greatest club side in history—Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona—and he finally did it by pushing his Real Madrid squad to a level of statistical perfection we haven't really seen since. When you look back at the la liga 2011 12 table, it isn't just a list of twenty teams. It’s a record of a cold war.
Madrid finished with 100 points.
Think about that for a second. In a league that included Prime Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta, Madrid managed to drop only 14 points across the entire 38-game calendar. They scored 121 goals. It was the "League of the Records." If you were a football fan back then, every weekend felt like a foregone conclusion, yet the tension was suffocating because one single draw for either side basically meant the title was gone.
The Numbers That Broke the La Liga 2011 12 Table
The gap between the top two and the rest of the world was a literal chasm. Real Madrid sat at the summit with 100 points, followed by Barcelona at 91. To put that in perspective, third-place Valencia finished with 61 points.
That’s a thirty-point gap between second and third.
Valencia was a "good" team. They had Roberto Soldado firing in goals and Unai Emery pulling the strings. They were a Champions League caliber outfit, yet they were closer to the relegation zone in terms of points than they were to the champions. This was the era of the "Super-Duper-League" within a league.
Cristiano Ronaldo bagged 46 league goals. In almost any other year in human history, he wins the Pichichi comfortably. But he didn't. Lionel Messi decided to go supernova and hit 50. Fifty goals in 37 appearances. It sounds like a glitch in a video game, but it was just a Tuesday for Messi in 2012.
👉 See also: Meaning of Grand Slam: Why We Use It for Tennis, Baseball, and Breakfast
Why Real Madrid Finally Toppled the Giants
Mourinho’s Madrid was built like a counter-attacking slingshot. While Pep’s Barca wanted to pass you into a state of hypnotic submission, Madrid wanted to hurt you in five seconds.
The turning point was the Clásico at the Camp Nou in April. Madrid held a four-point lead. A loss would have shrunk it to one, and momentum would have shifted back to Catalonia. Instead, Sami Khedira scrambled one in, Alexis Sánchez equalized, and then Cristiano Ronaldo produced the "Calma" moment. He rounded Victor Valdés, slotted it from a tight angle, and signaled for the crowd to quiet down.
That specific match effectively locked the la liga 2011 12 table in place.
It wasn't just about the stars, though. This Madrid team had a terrifying spine. Iker Casillas was still "San Iker" at the time. Sergio Ramos and Pepe were a defensive duo that prioritized violence and efficiency in equal measure. In midfield, Xabi Alonso acted as the quarterback, spraying 60-yard passes to Mesut Özil, who was playing some of the most aesthetic football of his career. Özil finished the season with 17 assists, many of them looking like they were threaded through a needle.
The Battle for the Rest: Chaos Below the Top Two
While the giants were fighting for the heavens, the rest of the league was a total dogfight.
Radamel Falcao arrived at Atlético Madrid and immediately started terrorizing defenders, helping them to a 5th place finish. But the real story of the season—other than the title—was Levante. Little Levante. They were a team of veterans, "grandpa" players as some called them, with one of the lowest budgets in Spain.
✨ Don't miss: NFL Week 5 2025 Point Spreads: What Most People Get Wrong
They actually led the league early in the season.
Seriously. In October, Levante was top of the table. They eventually fell back to earth, finishing 6th, which was still enough for Europa League qualification. It was a miracle of coaching by Juan Ignacio Martínez.
Then you had the heartbreak at the bottom.
The Relegation Tragedy of Villarreal
If you want to know how brutal Spanish football was that year, look at Villarreal. They had played in the Champions League that same season. They had players like Marcos Senna and Giuseppe Rossi. Yet, a combination of devastating injuries and a loss of identity saw them sink like a stone.
On the final day, they were safe until the 88th minute.
Radamel Falcao scored for Atleti against them, and simultaneously, Raúl Tamudo scored a controversial offside-looking goal for Rayo Vallecano against Granada. Just like that, the "Yellow Submarine" was relegated. It was one of the biggest shocks in the history of the modern Spanish top flight. They finished with 41 points—only one point less than 13th-place Real Sociedad. The margins were razor-thin.
🔗 Read more: Bethany Hamilton and the Shark: What Really Happened That Morning
- Real Madrid: 100 pts (Champions)
- Barcelona: 91 pts
- Valencia: 61 pts
- Málaga: 58 pts (The Manuel Pellegrini era with Qatari investment)
Málaga’s 4th place finish was huge. It was the first time they ever reached the Champions League spots. With Santi Cazorla pulling the strings and Ruud van Nistelrooy providing the veteran presence, they were the "new money" threat that actually lived up to the hype for a season.
How to Analyze the 2011-12 Season Today
When we look at modern La Liga, the point totals have leveled out. You don't see 100 points often anymore. The tactical shift toward "low blocks" and better defensive organization across the smaller Spanish clubs has made it harder for the big two to steamroll everyone 5-0 every week.
But 2011-12 was the peak of the "duopoly."
It was a season of extremes. The highest highs (Messi’s 50 goals) and the lowest lows (Villarreal’s collapse). Honestly, we might never see a scoring race like Ronaldo vs. Messi again. They were pushing each other to a point of physical exhaustion.
If you are looking at the la liga 2011 12 table to settle a debate about which era was better, use the goal differential. Madrid was +89. Barcelona was +85. The next best was Valencia at +15. That tells you everything you need to know about the lack of balance, but it also highlights the sheer quality of the top two.
To truly understand this season, you have to look past the points and look at the rosters. This was the last year of Pep Guardiola at Barcelona. He left at the end of the campaign, citing "four years of being drained." That's what Mourinho's Madrid did to people. They didn't just beat you; they made the league so demanding that even the greatest coach in the world had to go take a sabbatical in New York just to breathe again.
Practical Takeaways for Football Historians
- Context Matters: Don't just look at the 9-point gap at the top. Real Madrid won the league because they were more consistent against the "bottom 14" teams, rarely dropping points in games they were expected to win.
- Goal Difference is Key: Use the massive GD gap to explain why this era was criticized for being "uncompetitive" while being praised for "highest quality."
- The Falcao Factor: Remember that Atlético's rise started here. Diego Simeone took over mid-season (December 2011) and began the defensive transformation that would eventually break the duopoly two years later.
To get the most out of your research into this era, compare the 2011-12 stats to the 2000-01 season. You’ll see that back in 2001, Real Madrid won the league with only 80 points. The 20-point jump to 100 in 2012 shows the massive evolution in professional standards and the sheer concentration of wealth and talent at the top of the pyramid during the early 2010s. For a deeper look at individual player performances, cross-reference the table with the assist leaders—it reveals how much the league relied on elite playmakers like Özil, Messi, and Di María to break down increasingly desperate defensive lines.