The Best XI: MSport La Liga Team of the Season 2025/26

The 2025/26 La Liga season had everything. Drama, dysfunction, and one club running away with the league while the other imploded in slow motion. Barcelona won back-to-back titles for the first time since Messi's farewell years, finishing on 91 points to Real Madrid's 77, a 14-point gap that tells the whole story. Hansi Flick made it look easy. Two seasons, two titles. Germany is still wondering what they were thinking.

Real Madrid? A disaster. Xabi Alonso arrived in the summer with all the hype, got fired by January, and Alvaro Arbeloa finished the season as the caretaker. Mbappe still bagged the Pichichi for a second straight season. Yamal turned 18, then got injured. Vinicius threw tantrums on the touchline. The dressing room broke. Mourinho is reportedly coming next.

Here is the MSport La Liga Team of the Season 2025/26. The guys who ran the show from August to May.

📊 Official La Liga TOTS GK · €25m from Espanyol · 25 years old · La Liga champion in his first season at Camp Nou

Last year he saved Espanyol from relegation. This year he's a La Liga champion. Barcelona paid Espanyol roughly €25 million in the summer to make him their No. 1, and he repaid them inside one season.

The official La Liga Team of the Season pick at goalkeeper, ahead of Thibaut Courtois and every other elite name in Spain. Steady distribution, sharp reflexes, and the calm Barcelona needed after years of goalkeeper chaos. The Ter Stegen replacement question is settled. He's 25 and just won the league in his first year at Camp Nou. Easy call.

📊 Official La Liga TOTS RB · 3 assists · Atletico's longest unbeaten run (13 games) coincided with his best form · 30 years old

30 years old, still running like he's 24. Llorente was the most balanced full-back in La Liga this season, equally comfortable bombing forward as he was tucking inside as a third midfielder.

The official La Liga Team of the Season at right-back, with three assists and the defensive numbers to match. Diego Simeone has now built three different versions of his team around Llorente's lungs. The midfielder-turned-full-back experiment is the gift that keeps giving.

📊 Official La Liga TOTS · Played CB, RB, DM across the season · 3 goals from defence · First-choice patch for every Barcelona injury crisis

The most useful player in Spain this season. Eric Garcia played centre-back, right-back, defensive midfielder, and even popped up in the box for goals. La Liga's official Team of the Season XI rewarded the versatility, and Barcelona's title campaign was built on it.

When Inigo Martinez and Ronald Araujo missed chunks of the season, Eric was the patch. When Jules Kounde was out, Eric slid to right-back. When the midfield needed a body, Eric stepped up. The kind of player every champion needs and nobody talks about until the trophy is lifted.

📊 19 years old · Best ball-playing CB in Spain · Barcelona conceded just 31 goals (2nd best in La Liga) · Official TOTS substitute — we're starting him

The official La Liga TOTS put him among the substitutes. We're putting him in the starting XI because he was, frankly, robbed.

Cubarsi is 19 and already the best ball-playing centre-back in Spain. He led Barcelona's title defence with composure that doesn't match his age, breaking lines with passes that most veteran defenders can't attempt. Yamal gets the headlines, but Cubarsi is the one quietly building a Hall of Fame career one season at a time.

📊 Official La Liga TOTS LB · Elite crossing and defensive numbers for a bottom-half team · Kept Espanyol up through a 16-game winless run

Espanyol had the longest winless run in La Liga this season (16 matches). They still survived. A massive reason was their left-back.

Romero was the official La Liga Team of the Season left-back, ahead of Alejandro Balde and every other big-club name. Relentless overlapping runs, sharp crossing, and defensive work that kept Espanyol in games they had no business being in. He scored the winner against Barcelona at the RCDE Stadium last season and carried that confidence through 2025/26. Big clubs are watching.

📊 Official La Liga TOTS · Only consistent DM in a Madrid squad that otherwise collapsed · Madrid conceded a league-best 26 goals largely because of him

The only Real Madrid midfielder who didn't have a meltdown season. With Bellingham fading, Camavinga injured, and Valverde stretched between three roles, Tchouameni held the engine room together.

He covered ground nobody else wanted to cover, broke up attacks before they started, and kept his head while everyone around him lost theirs. Madrid finished second mostly because of Mbappe's goals and Tchouameni's brain.

📊 2 goals / 9 assists · 29 appearances · 1,840 successful passes · 8.33 FotMob rating · 2nd in La Liga for chances created (40) · 23 years old

Two titles in two seasons under Flick. The brain of the best team in Spain.

The numbers undersell him as always. He averaged 1,840 successful passes, an 8.33 FotMob rating across the season, and ranked second in La Liga for chances created. The midfield doesn't function without him. He turned 23 in November, was given the Spain captain's armband at the World Cup qualifying matches, and finished 11th in Ballon d'Or voting. Iniesta and Xavi rolled into one. We say it every year. He keeps proving it right.

📊 Official La Liga TOTS · Led Madrid in distance covered and high-intensity sprints · Played RB, CM and emergency striker across the season

The third Real Madrid midfielder in our XI tells you everything about Spain this season. Valverde was asked to play right-back, central midfield, and emergency striker depending on which game and which manager. He delivered in all of them.

Madrid's most reliable outfield player by a distance. The captain in everything but armband. Uruguay's leader for the World Cup, and the one Madrid player who left the season with his reputation enhanced rather than damaged.

📊 16 goals / 11 assists · 28 appearances · 1.07 goal involvements per 90 · 8.33 FotMob rating (highest in La Liga) · Most fouled player in the division · 18 years old

Turned 18 in July. Played like he was 28. Yamal finished with 16 goals and 11 assists in just 28 La Liga appearances, and would have hit 20+ goals comfortably if a hamstring injury hadn't ended his last month of the season.

The shot-creating numbers were absurd. 115 shots, 38 on target, a 33% accuracy rate, and the highest average FotMob rating in La Liga. He was the league's most fouled player, the most dribbled-past defender's nightmare, and Barcelona's most reliable big-game performer. 18 years old. World football is in trouble.

📊 25 goals (Pichichi, 2nd consecutive) · Led La Liga in total shots (63) · Back-to-back top scorer — only Ronaldo and Messi have done that in the last 38 years

Two seasons at Madrid. Two Pichichi awards. Only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have managed back-to-back top scorer titles in La Liga in the last 38 years. Mbappe just joined that list.

25 goals on the final day of the season against Athletic Club to seal it. The team around him was a disaster all year. Xabi Alonso got sacked. The dressing room fell apart. Fans started petitions to sell him. Mbappe just kept scoring. Bernabeu acceptance is now total. If Mourinho's reign begins next season, Mbappe is the centrepiece.

📊 16 goals / 5 assists · 21 total G/A (2nd best Madrid attacker) · 100 shots · 46 on target · Most direct involvements since 2023/24

Tantrums, touchline drama, a substitution row that broke the internet. Vinicius spent half the season making headlines for the wrong reasons. And still finished with 16 goals and 5 assists in La Liga, his most direct goal involvements in a season since Madrid won the league in 2023/24.

He's still the most dangerous left-winger in Spain when he's locked in. The problem is keeping him locked in. Mourinho's first job is going to be getting Vinicius and Mbappe to play in the same team without either of them needing therapy.

Back-to-back La Liga titles. Two seasons, two trophies. Hansi Flick has done what Xavi couldn't, what Setien couldn't, and what most managers in football would consider a generational achievement — all in 24 months at the Camp Nou.

This season was harder than last year. Yamal missed chunks through injury. The transfer window forced him to integrate Joan Garcia and adjust to losing Inigo Martinez for stretches. He still finished 14 points clear of Real Madrid, scored 91 goals (highest in La Liga), and won El Clasico at the Camp Nou to seal the title on May 10.

Germany let him go. Spain is laughing.

Barcelona ran away with it. Madrid imploded. Atletico stayed Atletico. Real Sociedad won a Cup. Yamal turned 18 and became the best teenager in football history. Mbappe won another Pichichi.

If 2024/25 was Barcelona kicking the door down on Real Madrid's dining table, this season was them moving in permanently. Mourinho returns next year. Madrid have to rebuild from the ground up. The gap might get bigger before it gets smaller.