Spanish La Liga 2024/2025

Kramerica Industries

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Season begins Aug. 15 with the first match day spread across five days with two games each day. Among the big clubs, Barcelona open up away to Valencia on the 17th, Real Madrid make a trip to the Balearics to face Mallorca the following day, and Atleti wrap up the first match day with an away trip to Villarreal.

The two Clásicos this season correspond to the 11th (@ Madrid) and 35th (@ Barcelona) match days, usually don't get a Clásico that deep into the calendar but if there's still a title race up for grabs at that point - at what's expected to be the Nou Camp by then - it could be quite compelling.

I know the expectation probably feels like this is Real Madrid's league to lose, but I'd exercise some caution there, both for historical reasons and current. Real Madrid also entered the 2017-'18 season as runaway favorites to win the league post-Neymar at Barcelona...they finished a distant 3rd, 17 points behind an almost-invincible Barcelona team. They were out of the title race early and never mounted a threat. 2022-'23 was also supposed to be a Real Madrid season, also a season where they finished well behind Barcelona. Real Madrid hasn't repeated as La Liga champions since the 2006-'07/'07-'08 editions, it's been a long time. They've had some close calls but never been able to maintain league superiority multiples time in a row in that time frame.

Further, it may not be getting a whole lot of attention, what with them signing Mbappé and all, but their center back situation is extremely tenuous and could easily be their undoing this season. Alaba's still not back from his knee injury (his form was also very inconsistent pre-injury), Nacho left for soft retirement in Saudi, they sold Rafa Marín to Napoli, and their only "replacement" was someone returning from loan who played 3 games all season last year, at a club that got relegated. Unless they make some late transfer (it's been reported they won't), they're one injury to Rüdiger or Militão from being in a state of chaos.

So Madrid are the favorites, deservedly so, but I'd give Barcelona a fair chance at this, no question. It's played out to call Atleti a dark horse, all I'm gonna say is that if they essentially manage to swap out Morata for Álvarez as their starting #9, that's not too bad. Still likely way too many question marks otherwise though to be seen as a true title challenger.
 
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Il Drago

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Interesting to see what Hansi Flick can do in La Liga.
 

Kramerica Industries

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Mallorca with a deserved draw against Madrid in the season opener (maybe even unlucky not to have won it straight up). Massive wake up call to anybody expecting La Liga to be a coast this year.
 

thatdude

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Mallorca with a deserved draw against Madrid in the season opener (maybe even unlucky not to have won it straight up). Massive wake up call to anybody expecting La Liga to be a coast this year.
Eh I think if this opening weekend has showed us anything it’s not to get to carried away by the results. IMO Madrid are still massive favorites
 

Kramerica Industries

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Eh I think if this opening weekend has showed us anything it’s not to get to carried away by the results. IMO Madrid are still massive favorites

It's not so much that I want to get carried away about one result. The away trip to the Balearic Islands is very difficult, Madrid lost that game in the '19-'20 season and managed to win the league anyway, they also lost there two years ago which was about the time their title hopes that season began to die off. Even last year's win was by a solitary freak goal. I just feel that some of Madrid's flaws have gone massively underrated during this summer because they signed Mbappé and, I get it, signing Mbappé has a way of putting a fine coat of paint on things. Doesn't matter if you've won the Champions League twice in the last three seasons, if the chance to sign Mbappe presents itself, you take it, I understand.

It's just some of the things I touched on in the OP of this post. Kroos retired. That's their midfield control, experience, and creativity gone. (Imagine Kroos setting up Mbappé...images we'll never get to see.) Nacho left for Saudi retirement. That's 1700 league minutes from last season gone. Joselu scored 10 or so goals in La Liga last season and was their only real aerial #9. Gone. None of them replaced by players of similar profiles which, in some cases I get, in some cases I don't. You don't replace Toni Kroos, he was as unique a player as it gets, and Madrid's wanted to get their Next Gen midfield going anyway, it was already their plan a year ago until Kroos got back in the lineup and performed so well as to be impossible to remove. Finding a Joselu type would be difficult, they wanted to keep him but Qatar offered him more money than he's ever made. They were all set to redeem his loan option before then. They decided to do absolutely nothing about replacing Nacho, which I think is going to bite them in the ass in a major way this season. This upcoming week is literally their only free midweek for the next few months. La Liga has two midweek rounds and there's Champions League games otherwise. They're playing two games a week with only two viable centerbacks unless Pérez changes his mind and makes a move in the next two weeks (he's stubbornly refused to entertain any ideas up to this point). Even their de facto backup CB - Tchouaméni - now can't really move back there because their other player able to play as a single pivot is injured for the next two months.

Furthermore, I think people conflate Barcelona's off the field problems too easily with being on the field problems. We all know Barcelona's got economic problems, we've heard about them for years. They still have a very good team. For all the so-called trials and tribulations last year, they went from 88 points in 2022-'23 to 85 last year, a negligible drop. The difference in La Liga was Madrid improving by 16 points from one year to the next, not Barcelona dropping 3 points. Barcelona have a consistency with La Liga performance even in the post-Messi era that is way better than anything Madrid's shown in the past 15 years, it's why Barcelona has been the more successful club of the two in that time frame (and it's not even close; nine La Liga titles vs. five). When Barcelona don't win La Liga, they're still in it 'till close to the end. When Madrid fail to win the league, it's not a surprise if they're already out of the running by February and their only purpose in La Liga is to use those games as glorified training sessions to stay sharp for the Champions League. Madrid's culture simply hasn't had that same kind of baked in consistency towards their domestic league. Maybe that'll be different with Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappé there now - I always thought El Gran Capítan Sergio Ramos' leadership was extremely overrated in this respect; in the '18-'19 season he was doing panenka's on every penalty he took; on one hand, it worked, on the other hand, doing that as your main penalty technique, one that has a high risk rate and looks foolish when you get stopped, just screamed to me a lack of taking competition seriously which I had little respect for - but Madrid need to show it before I believe it. Failing to hold onto a league title for 16 years now is all the proof I need to not like them this season.

I think you're right. I think Madrid have the best team in La Liga. They should win La Liga. But I would've written that exact same sentence before the 2017-'18 season. They came nowhere near winning La Liga. I would've written that exact same sentence before the 2022-'23 season. They came nowhere near winning La Liga. I'm done expecting them to retain their domestic titles, they haven't shown me that they're able to do it. I loathe Barcelona with every fiber of my being and I've written about this several times on this website and on every website that has been questionable enough to allow me to be a member of it, but in pre-season prediction surveys and whatever I picked them and I picked them with zero hesitation. It's up to Madrid to prove me wrong.

(You did nothing to deserve this essay being written at you. My apologies.)
 

wera

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Endrick <3
 

Besnik

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You can tell a lot about a person, based on how they look. Vini is a cunt, and of course that hairstyle suits him perfectly.
 

Il Drago

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So Barcelona could register Olmo only because Christensen got injured and he will be back in 4 months. Just incredible
 

Jnr

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Barca only has 1 rotten apple in the squad. 700k per week DeJong. 1Mil per week if the bonuses kicks in ( take out tax, still 500k. How on earth did it go so far. Impossible to sell only to Saudis, but that's almost a Saudi wage.

Haaland gets 425k per week minus tax lol.

Also DeJong is not even a starter :D

But overall they have massive youth set up in the main squad. Which is admireable. And Rube have started to implement this too.
 

Kramerica Industries

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I dunno if you're referring to De Jong's character or just his salary presence within the club, I'm just gonna say that De Jong's salary has bloated in no small part from deferments he took during Covid to alleviate Barcelona's economic problems then, and that it's a contract both parties signed and he's entitled to every cent that Barcelona owes him. That the club wants to paint him as this greedy mercenary is a reflection on them, not the player.
 

FCBarca

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It’s not merely deferments, he also has crazy clauses and wage increases from the final extension just as Bartomeu was escaping the club censure through resignation rather than officially thrown out - 4 massive extensions to Lenglet, Pique, FDJ and Mats. Only Mats & Pique later agreed to renegotiate with Laporta to spread the damage out and provide FFP relief, now Lenglet made a smaller effort in order to facilitate his loan to Atletico

FDJ wants to wait until 2026 when he can walk away for free while pocketing 40M net over next 2 seasons. He’s entitled to play it out as Bartomeu hoped, derailing financial stability for his successor or he can think about his career a bit to accept a bit less and transfer to somewhere he prefers and can thrive

Bernal tore his ACL yesterday so DM depth is needed
 

FCBarca

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I read they're trying to hijack Salzburg deal for Bajcetic

Barca were always thinking to go into this summer market for a solution at DM but Bernal’s emergence changed strategy. Now, they have to pivot fast for a player with best shot at minimal adaptation period and Bajcetic definitely fits the bill - a straight loan which would make sense
 

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Mbappe finally off the mark and gets a brace against Real Betis. Vini Jr gave him the penalty for the second goal.
 
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