MADRID - The final weekend of the La Liga season saw Leganes relegated, while Celta and Rayo Vallecano qualified for next season's European competitions. The league also said goodbye to some veteran players.

1. Weekend of goodbyes

The final weekend of the season saw several veterans make their last appearances with Raul Albiol leaving Villarreal, while Carlo Ancelotti and Luka Modric were given a special send-off by Real Madrid.

Perhaps the most emotional goodbye was that of Athletic Bilbao defender Oscar de Marcos, who leaves the club after over 570 appearances and 16 seasons, with players from both Athletic and FC Barcelona giving him a guard of honor and as he said "next season, I'll be in the stands, but I am certain in the future one of you in the stands will be here on the pitch," these words capture De Marcos' humility and understanding of the club.

2. Mbappe ready for blast-off

It took Kylian Mbappe a while to adjust to life at Real Madrid, and the striker admitted that his performance in a 2-1 defeat to Athletic Bilbao at the start of last December was a low point after he missed a penalty in an overall poor performance.

However, the striker has bounced back from his slow start at the club and his two goals in the 2-0 win at home to Real Sociedad means he ends with 31 goals in La Liga, seven in the UEFA Champions League and two in the Copa del Rey.

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Considering his relationship with Vinicius Jr has yet to gel and Real Madrid looked unbalanced this season with no holding midfielder, those numbers are grounds for optimism of even better ahead.

3. Aspas fitting hero for Celta

It was fitting that Celta Vigo's veteran striker Iago Aspas scored the goal that assured his side finished seventh in La Liga and booked a place in next season's Europa League.

The 37-year-old has been a consistently brilliant performer year after year as Celta has at times struggled to avoid relegation, with 120 goals and over 50 assists since the 2017-18 season.

The years have started to catch up with Iago, with Alfon and Fer Lopez starting to take on some of the attacking burden, but even so Saturday saw his 10th goal of the campaign and his celebration with thousands of traveling fans showed just what it meant.

4. Reality hits home for Leganes

Fourty-five minutes into the decisive last match of the season, Leganes was out of the bottom three as the team led 3-0 at home to Valladolid, while Espanyol was drawing 0-0 against Las Palmas, but everyone in the Butarque Stadium knew that salvation wasn't in their hands.

Twenty minutes into the second half, Espanyol was awarded a penalty and top scorer Javi Puado made no mistake. When Pere Milla doubled Espanyol's lead eight minutes from time, Leganes' hopes for another season in La Liga were over and it joins Valladolid and Las Palmas in relegation.

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It's tough on Leganes to go down with 40 points - a number that would have kept it up easily last year, but when you rely on results elsewhere on the last day, it rarely works out.