After three years without Cristiano Ronaldo and one year without Lionel Messi, Spanish football is looking just as good! The shock of losing the two was slowly absorbed by super-professional football, the show went on, the stars continued to appear, not at the level of the two, it’s true, but La Liga went on, showing that there is life after the departures of stars Messi and Ronaldo.
With Carlo Ancelotti, a coach who has gone down in football history, Real Madrid won the UEFA Champions League this summer, against all the odds, at the end of a unique season in which they beat Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool FC in the knockout stages, including the final! The start of the new La Liga season is a perfect one for Real Madrid, who have even had the luxury of selling one of their emblematic players, Carlos Henrique Casemiro, to Manchester United for £60 million after the start of the season.
With an extremely strong backbone (Thibaut Courtois, David Alaba – who arrived in Madrid last year), Luka Modrić, Toni Kroos, Karim Benzema), Carlo Ancelotti’s side seem to have no rivals this season either. Around the brilliant players gravitate, despite not being born with the aura of a star, Dani Carvajal, Éder Militão, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde, newcomer Aurélien Tchouaméni and, above all, Vinícius Júnior, ‘soldiers’ that any ‘general’ would want in his ‘army’!
Runners-up FC Barcelona have set their sights on revenge this season against arch-rivals Madrid. The Catalan outfit haven’t won the title since 2019. Next month, on 6 November, Xavi will celebrate a year of his reign at Barcelona. Xavi’s record on the bench of Spain’s multi-time champions is not sensational, but explainable given the situation he found the team in a year ago. Xavi enjoys the confidence of the club’s management and, most importantly, the fans. A young, football-enthusiast but inexperienced coach, Xavi is trying to rebuild, aware that time is not on its side! Barca got off to a bad start to the season, an unlikely 0-0 draw with the modest Rayo Vallecano right at the “Camp Nou”, a result that was not good for the punters around the world! But then followed five wins from as many games and 18 goals scored in the opposition goal. The 2-0 defeat in Munich to FC Bayern in the second group stage of the new Champions League season showed that Barcelona still have a lot of work to do to become what they were four years ago, when they were on their way to their last title, their 26th.
Atlético Madrid, the 2020-2021 season champions, got off to a hesitant start to the season. Third place last year marked Atlético Madrid’s tenth consecutive season on the La Liga podium, an astonishing feat of consistency. Diego Simeone’s side does not (as we all know) play a spectacular football, but they delight with their organization and discipline, their determination and belief in their own strengths right up to the last second of the match. Spectacular score reversals and late comebacks are no fluke for Atlético Madrid. They show a sound philosophy and a winning mentality!
Real Betis seems to be the revelation of the beginning of the season. The team coached by the venerable Manuel Lúis Pellegrini Ripamonti, who just turned 69, enjoys an almost unique support in European and world football. The team’s bond with its supporters seems to be the recipe for Real Betis Sevilla’s recent success. Winning the Spanish Cup last season, the first major trophy for Real Betis in almost two decades, seems to represent the pinnacle of the current generation, or perhaps a new beginning for the team from the Estadio Benito Villamarín, while the fans enjoy the satisfaction of looking down on their arch-rivals FC Sevilla.
With a new coach on the bench, Gennaro Gattuso, Valencia are not finding their feet. Challenged by the players for his methods since pre-season, Gennaro Gattuso has a real mission impossible on the bench of the bats, who are off to a modest start to the season.
Athletic Bilbao, one of the greatest stories in Spanish football history, continues to struggle this season against the La Liga giants. True to its principles, the Basque Country outfit continues to stand alongside Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, the team that has never been relegated from Spanish football’s top stage.
The battle for a place in Europe next season and for a place in the ‘elite group’ of the competition alongside eternal rivals Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Atlético Madrid remains open, and the duels look set to be spectacular.
Promoted to La Liga in the summer, Almería, Valladolid and Girona have started the season differently. The first two seem to be struggling to keep up, while Girona continue with the excitement gained after their spectacular return to the Spanish top flight.
