The 27th match day of the Spanish league comes to an end and, with it, we can already start to make certain statements regarding this year’s relegation: barring a statistical miracle seen in one season out of the last 13, Almería, Granada and Cádiz will be relegated.
This year, relegation seems to be cheaper than any other, which allows us to end up thinking that there are still teams that can get into trouble because of their bad league runs (Rayo Vallecano, RC Celta or Mallorca). But, really, does the mathematics confirm this? Let’s look at some data.
The three teams in relegation at the end of match day 27 are Almería (nine points and still without a win), Granada (14 points) and Cádiz (19 points). Ahead of them, RCD Mallorca have 27 points, Rayo Vallecano have 26 points and RC Celta are a step behind (24 points).
Let’s take a look at the team scores since the 2010-2011 season on this matchday: of the 39 teams that were in the relegation places at this stage of the competition, 26 were relegated at the end of the season. This leads to an average of, over the last 13 years of competition each season, two of the three teams in the relegation places drop out on match day 27.
This figure seems to leave Granada, although they have a game in hand due to the suspension of the match against Valencia, and Almería pretty much condemned. In addition, in the last 13 seasons, the three teams that were relegated at this stage have never been saved.
Everything seems to be smiling on Cádiz and allowing them to dream until the last moment, but there is one fact that is definitive for the three Andalusian teams: since 2010, only one team has been saved with 20 points (none have even reached that figure) or less.
The miracle came from Zaragoza in the 2011-2012 season, under Manolo Jiménez as coach. They were bottom of the table with just 19 points in the 27th round, eight points behind relegation-bound Villarreal.
What would happen was a miracle: they would take 24 points from the last possible 33, saving themselves on the last matchday against Getafe with a goal by Postiga in the last minute that would certify the 0-2 victory and the relegation of a Villarreal that had played Champions League that same season.
Cadiz are on the same score as Zaragoza, so they will be able to hang on until the last minute, but no other team has been saved with a similar score.
The next team with the fewest points at the end of this matchday that managed to avoid relegation to second division was Levante in 2017-2018 with 21 points. The difference? The Valencians weren’t in relegation places at the time because Deportivo (finished with 29 points), Las Palmas (finished with 22 points) and Málaga (bottom with 20 points) sealed the cheapest salvation in the last 13 seasons and were 14 points behind a Leganés side that marked salvation with 43 units.
Granada and Almería would need a miracle that hasn’t been seen in the last 13 years and Cádiz can cling on to the Zaragoza data, but, at the beginning of March 2024, we can say that the data shows that relegation is 99% definite.
Translated by Marcos Rodríguez.
Main image: Edit Marta Calle.
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