La Liga Week 25 Schedule, Fixtures, Table & Stream: Real Madrid & Cristiano Ronaldo Look to Stay in First Place, Lionel Messi & Barcelona Try to Rebound With a Win

By Damon Salvadore First Posted: Feb 27, 2015 11:16 AM EST

As the season winds down, each and every La Liga game is becoming more critical.

This week's set of games kick off with Espanyol and Cordoba on Friday, and then nine more games remain.

Last week, resulted in a devastating loss for Barcelona. Lionel Messi and Neymar were shutout in the 1-0 defeat, thus ending their season-high six-game win streak. Not only did Barcelona lose just their second home game of the season, but this was the second time this season they failed to defeat Malaga. In Week 5, they tied with Malaga, 0-0.

With that loss, Barcelona is now 18-2-4, giving them 56 points. They're still in second place, but with Real Madrid victorious in their last game, Barcelona is now four points behind Real Madrid in the standings. The primary reason Barcelona is in contention to capture their 23rd Spanish League championship is because of defense and goaltending. Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo has been outstanding in net this year, allowing just 14 goals in his 24 starts and a league-high 14 shutouts in the process.

As a team, Barcelona has allowed the fewest goals against this year, just 14. Barcelona will take on Granada on Saturday in Granada. Messi and Neymar create arguably the best soccer duo in the world today, but they know another loss would be devastating.

As for the first place team, Real Madrid quickly erased their embarrassing 4-0 loss to Atletico Madrid from Week 22. Since then, Real Madrid has won their last two games, against Deportivo and Elche, not allowing a single goal in either game. Just like Barcelona, Real Madrid has a superstar goal scorer, but they also have a great goalkeeper who keeps them in every game. Iker Casillas has done just that.

Casillas has been great between the pipes, but Real Madrid is on the brink of 33rd Spanish League championship because of their high-powered offense. Real Madrid has just one La Liga title over the last six years, but this year their offense have created a league-high 74 goals. Ronaldo still leads the league with 29 goals, and Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale have a combined 23 goals this year.

It doesn't look like Ronaldo will be able to catching Messi's 50 goal record from the 2011-12 season, but he will definitely come close with 14 games left to play. Ronaldo must score 22 goals in the final 14 games to break Messi's record.

Atletico Madrid hasn't been the super-power they were last season, but they are in third place. Fortunately for them, they did sweep first place Real Madrid this season. However, they have been very inconsistent compared to last year. Outside of Antoine Griezmann and Mario Mandzukic, Atletico Madrid's offense has been mediocre. Still, Atletico Madrid has a 17-2-5 record, giving them 53 points.

We also can't sleep on Valencia. Valencia is quietly in fourth place in the standings thanks to their three-game win streak.