The coronation has been postponed, if only for an afternoon. At the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez, Barcelona’s stroll towards the LaLiga title hit the kind of abrasive, unyielding resistance that José Bordalás’s Getafe have turned into a suburban art form. As the two sides laboured through a goalless first half on Saturday, the narrative scaffolding around the Catalan club’s season—dominant points margin, fearsome attack—suddenly looked shakier than the league table suggests. The reason was plain: for the first time in a decisive phase, Barça must negotiate the path to the trophy without the twin accelerants of Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, both felled by hamstring injuries that have abruptly narrowed the leaders’ margin for error.

Viewed from Madrid, the arithmetic remains overwhelmingly in Barcelona’s favour. Hansi Flick’s side arrived at the Coliseum with 82 points from 32 matches, nine clear of Real Madrid, and a victory would have stretched that advantage to eleven points with just five rounds remaining—a virtual death sentence for the title race. Spanish commentators noted before kick-off that Getafe, by contrast, were scrapping to cement a European berth, a motivation that Bordalás has weaponised in a stadium where points have been notoriously hard to extract. That pre-match tension translated into a turgid opening, described by Arabic-language broadcasters as a midfield stalemate entirely devoid of clear chances, with Barcelona’s first attempt, a tame Dani Olmo effort, drifting harmlessly wide on six minutes.

Yet the deeper tremor for the Catalans is not a single disjointed half on the road but the sudden depletion of the wide areas that have defined their campaign. Lamine Yamal, the prodigious teenager who has dazzled Europe, will not play again this season after damaging his femoral biceps while winning and converting a penalty against Celta Vigo in midweek. Raphinha, the Brazilian whose goalscoring reinvention made him a Ballon d’Or outsider, had already been sidelined on international duty and missed the Champions League quarter-final exit to Atlético Madrid. While the Brazilian is expected to return for the visit to Osasuna, he is unlikely to be thrust straight into the starting eleven, leaving Flick to navigate at least two fixtures—including Saturday’s test in Getafe—with a patchwork forward line. For a side that a month ago, as North American observers noted, was openly chasing a treble, the sudden narrowing of the horizon has been jarring.

Even within the grim arithmetic of the afternoon, there were flickers of Getafe’s menace. A rare dangerous foray forced a corner at the twelve-minute mark, and the hosts’ physicality earned Jules Koundé a yellow card for a crunching challenge on Mauro Arambarri. From Buenos Aires, where the match kicked off at late morning, Argentine viewers—long attuned to the rhythms of Spanish football—watched a Barcelona performance that lacked incisiveness but also the desperation of a team sensing genuine peril, a testament perhaps to the cushion Flick’s earlier work has built.

The forward-looking analysis is nuanced. Barring a collapse of historic proportions, Barcelona will reclaim the league title that has eluded them since 2023. But the manner of its final steps matters. The enforced reliance on Ferran Torres and Robert Lewandowski—capable deputies, but ones who do not stretch defences in the same manner—offers a preview of the vulnerability that will need addressing before May’s Copa del Rey final and the summer transfer window. Flick’s task is now one of management: securing the points required to make the coronation inevitable while preserving the psychological edifice of a side that, stripped of its exuberant wingers, suddenly looks far more human.