Real Madrid's 35th LaLiga title is a testament to their mentality and determination

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Real Madrid are the best team in Spain and worthy of the LaLiga title. One of the great single-season performances of any footballer for Los Blancos in living memory has to be the performance of Karim Benzema during their title march.

Madrid's achievement is all the more notable because of how much of an odd,angular, unusual triumph it has been.

With the titleclinching win over Espanyol on Saturday, there is a chance that more European glory could follow against Manchester City on Wednesday. Real Madrid could become the second Real Madrid squad to win Spanish and European titles in the same year. Allow that possibility to sink in for a moment. It is astonishing. They should be able to pull it off.

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This LaLiga title has been rough, but try to remember what a diamond in the rough is.

Madrid played their first game in front of just 19,000 fans after playing their first three away from home. Did you remember that? The season began a little inauspiciously.

Stadium redevelopment, with its associated venue dislocation, vast investment and reduced contact with fans, can become vastly expensive and even threaten a club's very status -- never mind their ability to win the big prizes. It is commendable to win this trophy in the midst of disruption.

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The purchase of Roman Abramovich by him made a huge difference in the future of the club. In Glasgow, the Old Firm giants faced extreme financial and social trauma when they needed to upgrade their stadiums. Valencia's stadium nightmare, one they don't want, another sitting half-built and unused, nearly finished them as a club. The cost of the stadium opened for the World Cup in 2006 left the club financially compromised for a few years, as they lost two of the four titles up for grabs while it was being built. Ask any fan of the club if the cost of the stadium has helped or hindered the club in the short and mid-term.

While building a football palace which will rival any sports stadium in the world, and which will imminently make Real Madrid the most dominant club in Spanish football, the club have consistently been frugal during transfer.

Is it surprising that there is extra merit in a title win which wasn't funded by expensive reinforcements? Get real. Get Real.

David Alaba arrived on a free transfer and has been successful.

For Madrid to be playing in a stadium where the fan atmosphere has been deflated and without huge investment to come to the aid of the legs and lungs of a team with an average age of 29 that features veterans.

There are more anomalies about Madrid's 35th title, but only their third in the past 10 years. Take the games from Sevilla. When they played, our champion gave their most persistent pursuers a lead, but then forced one of Los Blancos' most favored words, "remontada", on them.

The more dramatic of those two matches was in Seville, a hot place. Julen Lopetegui's side got a two-goal start and looked like they were going to crush the league leaders and then took Sevilla to the cleaners. The power, the passion, the invention, and the determination of that 3-2 win at thenchez Pizjuan stadium, having trailed 2-0 and playing without Casemiro, will live on in the memory of the victors, the vanquished, and any neutral lucky enough to have been.

The beautiful game is here. Leagues, tournaments and teams can be watched.

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On Sunday, May 1

• Elche vs. Osasuna (8 a.m. ET)

• Granada vs. Celta (10:15 a.m. ET)

• Rayo vs. Real Sociedad (12:30 p.m. ET)

• Barcelona vs. Mallorca (3 p.m. ET)

• Anderlecht vs. Brugge (12:30 p.m. ET)

Monday, May 2, is the day.

• Fulham vs. Luton Town (12:15 p.m. ET)

• Gladbach vs. RB Leipzig (2:30 p.m. ET)

• Leverkusen vs. Eintracht (2:30 p.m. ET)

• Getafe vs. Real Betis (3 p.m. ET)

It is odd that Madrid have only had to play their bitter city enemies at home and away, and have lost both times. Think of things like this, where the team lost just three times before winning LaLiga. The reaction was huge after each setback. The mark of true champion.

The defeat in Barcelona to Espanyol was limp. Their next result? An immediate trip back to the same city, a Camp Nou Clasico and a 2-1 win which was much more comprehensive and classy than the score suggests.

Do you think you can defeat Getafe? Los Blancos followed up their dopey and sloppy performance with a thumping of Valencia, who like to cause Madrid trouble. A power play.

The home humiliation against Xavi? The response was four straight wins, 10 goals scored, six of those points gathered on the road. Luka Modric, Benzema, Thibaut Courtois, and others have risen from the ashes with less remarkable audacity than the Phoenixes.

It is a nicety that this trophy completes the re-poker of the league title wins of Carlo Ancelotti. He is fun to be around, he was an important footballer, and his coaching career has made him a European soccer royalty. All conquering.

Let's not mess around. It is a reasonable bet that you will accumulate league-winning trophies.

It is gratifying to see that Ancelotti has added LaLiga to his list of titles, an achievement to mark him down as a cosmopolitan, continental polyglot as well as a manager par excellence. This is a championship win that has three podium positions filled by Courtois, the utterly preternatural will to win exhibited by Modric and a clutch of other on-pitch generals plus, in pole position, the startling brilliance of the Vin.

A total of 90 goals and assists have been given by the Frenchman and Brazilian since August. It's amazing. Vinicius was four when Benzema produced his first senior goal assist, and if the Brazilian attacker plays until he is 36, Benzema will be eyeing his 50th birthday. They are similar to the Odd Couple.

If you are a broken-spirited Atleti, Barcelona or Sevilla fan, you would have to be very mean-spirited in order to not admit that theVin-Ben duo invent some fantastic freestyle jazz out there on the pitch. Vinicius hadn't been trained to add tactics to his testosterone, so no-look football is now no-look football. A goal chance can be carved out or tucked away if a glance between them is not required.

They bring street football to the stadiums of LaLiga every weekend. Bless them a lot. Invention, wit, risk, will-to-win, kick-me-if-you-dare, now-you-see-me-now-you-don't stuff -- I'm going to call it magic.

Madrid was in a low gear until the Grand Prix weekends arrived and needed Courtois to be good. When the team was in third gear, not fifth, the towering Belgian who has assumed a leadership role in this group, would paw away some fantastic effort from his top left or right hand corner. His fingerprints are on the trophy as much as they were on the balls he tipped over the bar or around the post in a variety of demanding tests around this country. If he had been injured for six or seven games, Madrid wouldn't be wearing the crown this early. They deserve admiration and applause, but he wasn't.

There will be a relatively limited time for back-slapping and lording it over weakened foes, because football is like the ocean's tides -- flowing in only to ebb out and flow back again. All will begin again after that. In their squad and first XI, Madrid have work to do. The test is to be repeated. Again and again. Madrid have only once won back-to-back LaLiga titles over the course of thirty years.

Put your ear to the ground: Benzema is performing like a 28-year-old, Vinicius is playing like he is in paradise, and Modric is still gripped by a fanatical drive to keep winning.

Don't forget to hear the rumble of a Madrid era coming.