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    Is La Liga in crisis?

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    Tweesus

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    Registration date: 2006-08-06

    Is La Liga in crisis?

    Post by Tweesus on Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:51 pm

    Good article by Tim Stannard this week. Views? I know it can be argued that its always been like this, but this season is even more ridiculous and the situ doesn't look like changing.

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    To sit nicely alongside other nonsense notions such as 'You can't lose money with property!', 'Your pension is safe with us!' and 'To get the best, you have to pay the best!' a new donkey's dangler of a claim has been made by a financial institution.

    Indeed, the regular boast from the banking backers of the Spanish Primera, BBVA, that theirs is the best league in the world probably tops every other whopper ever told by any bank in history.

    The sad truth is that la Primera isn't even the best league in Spain, with la Segunda a billion times more competitive and the Andalusian third division (group 15) set for a thrilling end to the season.

    The most common description of the Spanish top flight this season is that it is a two race race. And this is indeed true with Real Madrid and Barcelona tied at the top of the table on 68 points after two more wins over Sporting and Zaragoza respectively.

    Every other competitor in this race is currently lying spread-eagled on the turf, surrounded by flesh-feasting flies and with cat-food manufacturers bidding for their slowly rotting equine cadavers.

    What cannot be denied, though, is that la Primera boasts the best footballer playing in this or any other dimension at the moment.

    After Leo Messi's hat-trick against Zaragoza on Sunday - the striker's sixth, seventh and eighth goal in a week - Pep Guardiola said that he had run out of adjectives to describe the 22-year-old who now has 25 league strikes to his name. He's not the only one.

    The Argentinean has been absolutely stunning with three goals against Valencia last Sunday, his single-handed brace-bagging of Stuttgart in the Champions League and the three against Zaragoza (that could have been four had the Wonderful One not elected to give a morale boost to his failing team-mate ZlatanIbrahimovic by letting the Swede take the penalty that Messi won).

    However, the fantastic forward has been the brightest of sparks in what has been the dullest of campaigns in Spain.

    Whilst it is no real surprise that both Madrid and Barcelona are the two teams challenging for the title with the former having spent obscene amounts of money and the latter being the best side on the planet, the pathetic, pitiful display from the chasing pack of teams which could and should be doing better has shamed a league which has aspirations of surpassing its English counterparts in terms of popularity and spectacle.

    However, most of the runners in la Liga can be excused being a little off the pace this season.

    Unlike the comrade clubs in the Premier League which equally divide television income amongst themselves, understanding that the division is only as a strong as its weakest side, a good 60% of the cash in Spain goes straight into the pockets of Real Madrid and Barcelona, leaving the rest to fight over the scraps with Valencia and Atlético getting the meatiest chunks.

    So, it's little wonder that the Zaragozas and Tenerifes of la Liga have all-but lost when they come to the Bernabeu and Camp Nou, grounds where the hosts have remained unbeaten all year in the league.

    But this is still no excuse for Valencia being a full 18 points behind the two at the top, having scored 30 goals less than Madrid and Sevilla being 24 points away in fifth.

    Luis Fabiano, Jesus Navas, Fredi Kanouté, Juan Mata, David Silva and David Villa are all footballers playing for these two clubs and all fit the description of being international class.

    So it is nothing less than a disgrace that Madrid and Barcelona are mere specks in the distance.

    'The lack of competition in the Spanish league is contributing to the scandalous amount of points that Madrid and Barcelona have got' writes Roberto Palomar in Monday's Marca, under the headline noting that 'the Scottish Liga keeps on going'.

    Whilst a €550m debt-possessing Valencia and a spendthrift Sevilla can't compete on financial terms with their rivals, the two teams can certainly do so on the football field against Espanyol, Getafe, Racing, Almería, Sporting, Deportivo and Tenerife - opponents that both sides have either lost or dropped points to this season, leading to the shameful gap at the top of the table.

    Both clubs started the year with the 'Spurs Syndrome' - the idea that they could compete with the big boys, but why bother when it's too hard? - and gone on from there.

    This has especially been the case with Sevilla, a side packed with talent but infuriatingly flimsy and about to eject their current coach, Manolo Jiménez, who has done nothing more than what is basically required of him at the club since the departure of Juande Ramos in 2007.

    The club's latest abject display - a 2-0 defeat to Espanyol - sees them without a win in four and in danger of sinking without a trace during the final run-in. It was a performance in Cornella which summed up Sevilla's lamentable, half-arsed, pathetic approach to their league campaign.

    The fact that Mallorca are currently in the fourth Champions League place demonstrates, once again, how poor la Primera is this season.

    The Balearic side deserve all the respect and praise in the world for having achieved this astonishing achievement considering many pundits - this one included - expected Mallorca to be at the other end of the table.

    After all, the Champions League chasers are on the brink of bankruptcy and have had to sell off their best players every summer in an attempt to balance the books.

    But Mallorca's home crowd rarely goes above 12,000 and the club's players have only won two matches on their travels, having picked up 12 wins from 13 in the Ono Estadi instead - another sad indictment on the quality of la Primera's members this season.

    The other teams competing for European places are sixth-placed Athletic Bilbao, a team that is one-dimensional, hideously violent and can only field locally-sourced players, and Deportivo below them, a side whose top scorer boasts just four goals.

    The strongest argument against these complaints of mediocrity is that this situation was ever so in la Liga with Real Madrid and Barcelona always dominant and the rest acting as also-rans. But this is not necessarily the case.

    Villarreal came second to Madrid two seasons ago and in the campaign before that, Sevilla could have won the title on the last day.

    But it seems that these scenarios will become increasingly rarer with the future looking fairly bleak in the life of la Liga.

    Barcelona are set to be strong for many years to come whilst Real Madrid will just keep on borrowing and spending till they achieve satisfaction or lose their home, like a Brit with a credit card.

    Valencia are expected to replace David Villa with Roberto Soldado - like swapping caviar with sick - over the summer, whilst Sevilla will be losing Luis Fabiano, with the Brazilian international looking for one last World Cup-inspired pay day in Italy or England.

    There's only two ways to fix a competition that stretches the meaning of the word to breaking point.

    The first is the equal division of the TV rights - something that would instantly bankrupt both Real Madrid and Barcelona, so unlikely to happen anytime soon.

    The other is for the other supposedly big teams of la Liga to go for broke on clichés by stepping up to the plate and showing some backbone for once and not letting their big two have it all their own way by dropping stupid points throughout the year.

    If they don't do this, then la Liga will quickly become the most boring league in the world, not the best.

    Jaime

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    Re: Is La Liga in crisis?

    Post by Jaime on Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:57 pm

    See the discussion in the Jornada 27 thread. ok

      Current date/time is Mon May 21, 2012 9:38 pm