Tito Vilanova did not see his team win the league. It was coming up to midnight on Saturday and across the city, out near the airport at the Estadi Cornellà-El Prat, the final whistle was about to go on the title race. But the end had effectively come months before and it had come, at least in part, like this: with Real Madrid conceding a goal from a set piece and limply dropping points away.

Helenio Herrera, Barcelona's coach between 1958 and 1960, famously once claimed that his team would win their next match without getting off the bus. This weekend, Barcelona won the league without getting on it.

Real knew that if they did not beat Espanyol on Saturday, Barcelona would clinch La Liga with four games to spare. Barcelona knew it too but Vilanova was not watching. He did not see Christian Stuani put Espanyol into the lead or Gonzalo Higuaín equalise; no nerves, no tension, and better things to do. "I was just about to go to sleep after preparing our game [against Atlético Madrid the following day], when I looked at the internet to see the score," he said. "I saw that they were 1-1, so I put the telly on for the last three minutes. They didn't show the game, really, they just kept focusing on the bench. So I didn't see it."

The whistle went and Barcelona were champions, just as everyone has known they would be since before Christmas. Vilanova and his wife Montse said congratulations. And then Tito went off to bed.

So it was that Barcelona arrived in Madrid on Sunday already champions, were given a guard of honour by Atlético and played out a game that felt more like a friendly. Radamel Falcao scored the first. Lionel Messi then walked off the pitch and headed silently down the tunnel, injured. And in his absence, with Barcelona down to 10 men, Alexis Sánchez equalised before Gabi scored an own goal to give Barcelona victory. There were embraces and cheers; four or five players turned and applauded the couple of hundred Barcelona fans high in the stand above.

And that was pretty much that. There will be an open-top bus through the streets of Barcelona on Monday, starting by the port, heading up Laietana, along Aragó and finishing at the stadium. On Saturday night, after Real's draw, Dani Alves posted a picture of himself with a bottle of cava and after the win over Atlético on Sunday there were more photos: Andrés Iniesta with Sánchez, modesty covered by the shirt draped across his lap; the squad on the bus, heading across the runway to their plane home; players in the dressing room, raising a finger for each title won: six for Iniesta, four for Sergio Busquets, one for Cesc Fábregas. There were T-shirts, too, "champions" written on them. But there was something just a little flat about it all.

Barcelona's sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta had already complained that the title had come to be a little "clandestine" and on Sunday morning, it was not on the cover of the Madrid papers. Conveniently, they had other sports to hide behind, AS wedging its tongue in its cheek to declare knowingly: "Basketball to the rescue." When it turned out that basketball did not come to the rescue, Real Madrid losing the Euroleague final to Olympiakos, Fernando Alonso and Rafael Nadal did. Formula One was the cover this morning. Anything but Barça.

Now, that was perhaps inevitable – these are, after all, avowedly pro-Madrid papers and the Catalan ones certainly did carry title winning front pages – but there was something about the feeling left by this title that went further than a little rivalry. On page five of the Catalan daily Sport, the headline on Josep-Maria Casanovas's column insists: "this should be celebrated properly." On page six, the headline on Joan Vehils's column insists: "this should be celebrated in style." It was as if they were trying to convince themselves – and everybody else.

A poll asked whether fans valued the league title success – 93% said yes. That sounds like a ringing endorsement until you turn it on its head: 7% of Barcelona fans attach no value to the title? Really?

Under the stands at the Calderón, Vilanova said: "I have no doubt that we are the best team in Spain this season … and by some distance." The fact that he was even asked was significant. Perhaps it is natural that a league title which José Mourinho ceded before Christmas should have less impact than one won dramatically at the end of the season. This is a title everyone knew Barcelona would win for a long time. Perhaps if the season had been the other way round, Barcelona pulling away from Real at the end rather than leaving them in the distance at the start, it might be different.

The sense that Real abdicated contributes too – right down to Barcelona not have to play to claim the title – and leaves people with the doubt, in a championship reduced to two teams, as to whether Barça won the league or Madrid lost it. It is a doubt that also lingers because when it comes to the head-to-heads, it is hard to avoid the sensation that the balance of power has shifted Real's way: since the 2-2 draw in October, Real have knocked Barcelona out of the Copa del Rey and defeated them in the league with a weakened team, albeit in a match that felt largely insignificant. Just as last year, there was a sense that Real's title would lack something if they took the crown without beating Barcelona, so that same debate is posed once again this time round (with some inevitably switching trenches).

This season has been conditioned by that Copa del Rey semi-final defeat and, above all, the Champions League semi-final. Barcelona have reached six Champions League semi-finals in a row, more than anyone else ever, but they conceded seven goals to Bayern Munich. Seven. So many goals leave quite a mark, the sheer dominance of Bayern, the completeness of their destruction, cannot fail to leave scars. When Vilanova was asked by Gazetta dello Sport's Filippo Ricci for his valuation of the season on Sunday night, there was something telling about the fact that he requested a little clarification: "In the league, you mean, or the season [as a whole]?"

But then continued: "Any season in which you win the league is a successful season."

He is right, of course. As he insisted, when it comes to the league, Barcelona have been the best side … and by some distance. Between those two Sport columns, there was room for one more article, a double page spread. The headline ran: "A good league sure deserves a party." There it was again, that sense of trying to convince everyone, possibly even of protesting too much, and yet Sport was right too. This is a league title that almost defies analysis, and appears to defy celebration too. And that is unfair.

There has been a sense of vulnerability, a little lack of drama, but this has been an extremely good league campaign. Barcelona stand 10 points clear of Real, with a game in hand. They are on 91 points; if they win their last three games they will equal the 100-point record Real set last season – a record universally lauded. But now, that 100-point mark, an all-time record, is being held up as a minimum, as if a title without equalling their rivals Real is worthless. In fact, it would be astonishing.

That 100-point total provides an objective for the last three games, a point to be proven; the chance to equal their rivals, adding value to this season. It is a target that comes at the end of a season in which, for almost six months, there has not been a target. It is perhaps even more impressive that Barcelona have won 29 of their 35 games when you consider that, given their lead, they did not really need to. They have scored 107 goals: the joint second highest total in history, with three games left. They have scored in every single game: Messi scored consecutively against every team in the division and has 46 in total. The stats in Spain always leave a doubt, not least because every season those figures grow bigger while the rest of the league shrinks, but they remain impressive.

Mourinho recently claimed to have ended Barcelona's hegemony but they have the title back. His team broke their run and Barça have broken back. If there is a hegemony, it is Barcelona's. This is their fourth league in five years. Over the last 10 years, they have six to Madrid's three. It is not purely coincidental. For Xavi, this was a seventh league title; for eight members of the squad, it was their first. It was also the first under a new coach, after the departure of Pep Guardiola. For others it will be their last. Barcelona cannot allow the title to blind them to their flaws; nor though can they allow their flaws to blind them to this success or to the things that they do well, and there are many of them.

This is also a title that has been achieved despite injuries and illness, with their coach absent because he has cancer. As Javier Mascherano put it bluntly but effectively: "He's not in New York on holiday." Think about the implications of that for a moment. This remains a remarkable achievement; "if Tito gets well and we win nothing," it doesn't matter, the president Sandro Rosell had said. Instead, they won the league. Vilanova suggested that no other club would have come through it so well.

While Vilanova was talking, you could hear the fans outside singing but they were the Atlético fans. There was no conga line in the car park en route from dressing room to bus. The players came through one by one and mostly in silence. There was little in the way of screaming and shouting, little show yet of the satisfaction they must surely have felt. Outside perhaps 200 fans gathered to cheer them off, singing: "Champions! Champions!" But it was all quite low key.

At 9.51pm, a plain, green bus with blackened windows pulled out from behind the Calderón and slipped on to the motorway and round to the airport. "We have celebrated more than people think," Gerard Piqué said. They will deservedly celebrate some more on Monday. They will board another bus. This one will have markings of the team, champions for the 22nd time. It will also have an open top.

Talking points

• Atlético have been visited by Real Madrid and Barcelona in the last month. Real and Barcelona have scored one each, Atlético have scored four … and lost both games 2-1, which is not ideal preparation for Friday's Copa del Rey final. But the fans kept on singing. They were still there well after the game: so many of them and for so long that the players were forced to come back out to the pitch and salute them. Friday at the Bernabéu could be very special indeed. Incidentally Diego Costa was true to form: he ran on to the pitch and immediately into two opponents.

• Raphaël Varane will miss the Cup final after picking up a meniscus knee ligament injury against Espanyol. Pepe must be kicking himself. Which at least makes a change from kicking everyone else.

• At the bottom, Zaragoza drew and Deportivo La Coruña, Mallorca and Celta Vigo all lost. Osasuna's win is a huge step towards safety, while any lingering fear for Athletic Bilbao has surely gone with their 2-1 win against Mallorca, but it is still tight. From the bottom up: Mallorca 29, Celta 31 (having played a game more than the rest), Deportivo 32, Zaragoza 34, Granada 35 (with Monday night to come), Osasuna 36.

Results

Levante 0-0 Real Zaragoza, Athletic Bilbao 2-1 Mallorca, Valladolid 1-0 Deportivo La Coruña, Osasuna 1-0 Getafe, Espanyol 1-1 Real Madrid, Rayo Vallecano 0-4 Valencia, Real Betis 1-0 Celta Vigo, Atlético Madrid 1-2 Barcelona, Málaga 0-0 Sevilla

Monday night: Real Sociedad v Granada.