A magnet for so many of the world’s most gifted footballing technicians, La Liga has provided its spectators with countless memorable performances and titanic clashes between some of Europe’s biggest clubs down the years and isn’t showing any signs of slowing up.
A league rich in both talent and variety, the Spanish top-flight is arguably the world’s highest-quality and most intriguing league at present, a competition added to by the political tensions and regional identities inherent in the Iberian game.
With the apparent greatness of the current Barcelona side and the arrival of Jose Mourinho in Madrid as its major plotlines, 2010/11 promises to be yet another fascinating season in La Liga.
The Race for the Title: A Tale of Two Cities
A few brief seasons at the start of the last decade aside, when Valencia under Rafael Benítez and Javier Iruerta’s Deportivo de La Corũna broke up La Liga’s established duopoly for a short time, Real Madrid and Barcelona have overwhelmingly dominated La Liga since the start of the new century, winning eight of the last eleven titles between them.
Once again, the 2010/11 campaign looks set to be fought out between Catalonia’s sporting and cultural flagship and the capital’s most illustrious club, the two institutions arguably both stronger now than they have ever been.
Barca - Europe's best team?
FC Barcelona, coached by club legend Pep Guardiola, has come to be seen as the finest club side in Europe over the last four or five years, the Blaugrana playing a brand of highly aesthetic and equally effective passing football. Driven by the relentlessly accurate distribution of Xavi, the unrivalled creativity of Andres Iniesta and the attacking genius of Lionel Messi, the Catalans have been a joy to watch in recent years.
Having recently signed David Villa from Valencia, La Liga’s most consistently threatening striker over the last five years, and apparently drawing closer to securing the signature of Javier Mascherano, Barcelona are continually building on their success and planning for the future. The Camp Nou outfit arguably look stronger, in the lead-up to the 2010/11 season, than they ever have before and it will surely take an almighty effort from their Madrid rivals to prevent Guardiola’s side from claiming a third consecutive title.
However, spurred on by Barcelona’s growing superiority, Real Madrid have responded in typical fashion, by going about assembling one of the most talented, expensive squads ever seen, in order to wrestle the league away from Catalonia.
Florentino Pérez’s return as club president, last summer, prompted an unprecedented spending spree. Global superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaká, Karim Benzema and Xabi Alonso all arrived at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, in what was seen as the second wave of Madrid’s famed galáctico policy. Although the team may have fallen short in the league last season, losing out to Barcelona by just three points in what was a record-breaking campaign, Pérez has made some important adjustments, the most notable change being his hiring of José Mourinho as manager.
The Portuguese – fresh from a treble-winning season with Inter – will be relishing the challenge ahead of him in the Spanish capital, his brief being to shape his squad of talented individuals – including his latest signing, Mesut Özil – into a cohesive unit and win Los Blancos their first title since 2008. A master motivator and an inspired tactician, Mourinho is Madrid’s first galáctico coach and it would be little surprise should he add to his already burgeoning CV, by guiding his new club to success in his first season in Spain.
It promises to be a fascinating, potentially historic season at the summit of the Primera División.
Continental Ambition
Continually overshadowed by the dominance of and rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona, life in La Liga can occasionally be disheartening for the cluster of clubs competing in the upper echelons of the table and yet unable to come close to winning the title, such is the strength of the top two.
Can Forlan inspire Atleti to more success?
That said, there are a handful of teams in the division that have acquitted themselves admirably in recent seasons and have made an impression of European competitions, when they have been given the opportunity. Last season Quique Sánchez Flores’ Atlético Madrid triumphed in the inaugural season of the Europa League, energised by the goals of Diego Forlán and the all-action midfield play of Simão Sabrosa, to also reach the final of the Copa del Rey.
Although their continental exertions took their toll on league form, Atléti eventually finishing the season in ninth place, Los Colchoneros have enough quality to be consistently finishing in the top four and, with the right additions to the squad, should be confident of Champions League qualification.
Another of the sides perennially in and around the European places is Sevilla, a club that has produced a consistently high level of performance throughout the last decade, claiming two UEFA Cups and a pair of Copa del Rey titles to become firmly established as a major force in the modern era.
Despite his team’s untimely exit from the Champions League, Antonio Álvarez has at his disposal a squad that plays with an unfussy elegance and possesses an underrated strength and power, which allows the team to match sides that attempt to negate them with a physical approach. A group of players with a diverse range of abilities – from Diego Capel, to Jesús Navas, to Luís Fabiano – the Rojiblancos are perhaps the club best equipped to challenge the top two. It may be unlikely to happen this season, but if there is a team capable of toppling the Barça-Madrid axis, it’s Sevilla.
In 2009/10 it was Valencia that finished third to Madrid and Barcelona, topping the mini-league of clubs all looking to break up the seemingly incessant run of success shared by the old rivals. Although Unai Emery’s side were impressive at times last season, one fears that Los Che may struggle to repeat the feat having lost David Villa and David Silva to Barcelona and Manchester City respectively.
As good as players such as Juan Mata and Éver Banega are, Valencia’s squad looks far shallower and much less robust than it has done in recent years. Unless the money from the departures of Silva and Villa is re-invested in the signings of several top-class players before the end of the summer, players that can help the club develop and move forward, then the coming season unfortunately looks like it could be one of regression for the east coast team.
Valencia are more than good enough to again finish in the top four, but much depends on the club’s business activity over the next month or so.
Villarreal's Nilmar
Despite not enjoying the best of campaigns last season, Villarreal are a team that underwent a transition following the departure of Manuel Pellegrini to Real Madrid, last summer, and now looks ready to move up a gear with what is a small but talented squad at El Madrigal.
Having been handed a Europa League place following Real Mallorca’s exclusion from the competition over a licensing technicality, El Submarino Amarillo is set for an unexpected European adventure but will surely be focusing first and foremost on improving their consistency on the domestic front.
The team’s spine of Diego López, Diego Godín, Marco Senna, Giuseppe Rossi and Nilmar is quite possibly the best outside of the “big two” and, if those key players can avoid long lay-offs, should see Juan Carlos Garrido’s team comfortably qualify for Europe. They may be a little short of the all-round quality required to mount a serious bid for third place, but there’s no reason why this miraculously over-achieving club can’t, with a favourable wind, book itself a Champions League berth yet again.
Feeding Off Scraps: The Relegation Battle
Away from the glitz and the glamour, with no hope of European adventure and survival the uppermost priority, the bottom of the league can be a miserable place to be. However, La Liga’s basement has provided us with some superbly entertaining relegation scraps in recent years and I for one am hoping for more of the same in 2010/11.
Can Levante avoid the drop?
Of the teams that have come up from the Segunda División, Real Sociedad look fairly well placed to stay up, but Hércules and Levante – respectively the second and third placed sides in the lower tier – look like they could struggle to stay up in what is an increasingly competitive division, in its lower reaches.
Hércules, despite a smattering of quality with players such as Javier Portillo and Tote, would appear to lack the general abilities and top level experience that is vital to ensuring any team’s competitiveness in the Primera Liga. The same can be said for Levante, a team that flits between the first and second tiers, but struggled horribly when they were last in the top flight, finishing rock bottom a full 17 points short of safety.
Malaga, who only narrowly survived the drop last season, will again be hard-pushed to avoid the trap-door. Although the Andalusian side has some players with decent reputations (Duda and Edinho spring to mind), theirs is essentially a squad of Portuguese and South American journeymen alongside some fairly mediocre home-grown footballers. If Jesualdo Ferreira can instil in his team an element of coherence, then Malaga could find themselves well clear of the basement come the end of the season. However, should the team continue operating in its relatively ramshackle way, serious problems could lie ahead for the Boquerones.
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