La Liga Thread

robin_007

robin_007

Siem de Jong Fan
1 September 2005
Holland
AFC Ajax
I was suprised I couldn't find one :shock:

Standings after 23 playing rounds
1. Barcelona 46
2. Sevilla 44
3. Valencia 42
4. Real Madrid 42
5. Atl Madrid 39
6. Real Zaragoza 38
7. Recreativo Huelva 36
8. Getafe 35
9. Espanyol 32
10. R Santander 32
11. Osasuna 30
12. Deportivo 30
13. Villarreal 29
14. Real Betis 26
15. Levante 26
16. Mallorca 26
17. Athl Bilbao 26
18. Celta Vigo 25
19. Real Sociedad 14
20. Gimnastic 13
Click to expand...

Topscorers
Kanoute (Sevilla) 19
Ronaldinho (Barca) 16
Milito (Zaragoza) 15
Van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid) 11
David Villa (Valencia) 10
Click to expand...
 
great matches... classic entertaining spanish football...... awful defenses, great plays.... always a pleasure to see :)

forlan's goal was really amazing!
 
Congrathulations Real, you deserve it this year! :applause:

Shit Barça, what the hell you have done! :(
 
What a league! What a season! :eek:

Thank you La Liga! God bless you guys.

This is what we call football. This is what we call Drama. This is what we call excitement. You defined all those things this year and not just in this final round but for many weeks that led to this final climax.

4 teams! that were still fighting relegation and hoping to avoid it and 2 of them would go down in this LAST round! That was incredibly exciting on its own. Especially when you consider, teams as historic as Athletic Bilbao were doing it against another historic Basque side in Sociedad (who ultimately did go down) along with Betis and Celta both of whom have some very good players.

It makes you appreciate this extremely competitive and high quality league even more now when you see a team with players like Celta Vigo possesses go down to 2nd division. (How many of them will leave? we'll have to wait and see) and the likes of Betis who has a good enough squad to get in Europe in most other leagues and Bilbao just to survive.

In the UEFA cup zone, you had two teams still having to fight for a place in Atletico and Zaragoza both of whom, full of great players and some superstars that to be honest, you'd never see in the non-top teams of even the very best other leagues.

Then you have the title fight of course. Up until 2 rounds ago, it was 4 teams with a chance but Valencia were finally stopped after that heart-breaking derby loss to the Yellow Submarines.

Then you have Sevilla whom in my opinion are the REAL champions of Spain AND Europe and were the best team in the world this year, fighting ALL the way. Till the VERY last round of EVERY single competition they were in.

If they had gotten knocked out early in Europe like Barca or Real did and not go to the final of Spanish Cup (which they still have to play against Getafe for), they would've been most likely the champions this year. But they had to focus and divide their attention on 3 major competitions while the much bigger-spending Barca and Real and Valencia had 2 or 1 to focus on in most of the latter stages of the season.

Sevilla didn't have that luxury. They went to the final of Uefa cup against another Spanish side and got the gold for the 2nd year in a row. And still have the chance to win a double if they can be victorious against Getafe in the cup final. It was a shame to not have them in CL this year anyway (despite finishing on points and with better goal-difference than Osasuna who got that last CL spot last year) because they had a great enough team and manager to even go all the way to CL final.

And yet despite all those games being played, all that pressure and lesser smaller squad, they STILL went into even the LAST round of the league, having the possibility of being crowned the new champions of Spain after about 50 years.

It wasn't to be ultimately. But they won't be forgotten and nobody is gonna consider them 'losers'. The very biggest and highest spending teams in Europe find it extremely difficult to keep it going ALL The way in ALL competitions year after year. And none were able to do so again this year. Chelsea coming close but ultimately failing both in Europe and in domestic league.
But Sevilla did it. It took great players, a great manager, and a great sense of team unity and motivation to do what they did this year in the most competitive league of them all and through Europe and Spanish cup, yet they did it and went ALL the way to the very last with hope of achieving a historic treble!

My real applause goes to them therefore and I consider them the very best team Europe & Spain had to offer this year. :applause: :applause: :applause:

But of course, Real deserve special credit too for the magnificent job everybody in the background and on the pitch and the fans in the stadiums have been doing since Christmas.

They got the job done late in so MANY games in the past few months that it seemed like their DESTINY to win this league.

Sevilla were dropping points towards the end due to fatigue and having gone so far in all 3 competitions and Barca threw the title basically away when they had draws against neighbour rivals Espanyol last round (Barca fans hate Raul Tamudo, the Espanyol legend EVEN more now!! :mrgreen: :lol: ) and against Betis a couple weeks prior to that. They gave up the driver's seat to Real thanks to those 2 matches and thanks to Real's late emergence in the past few weeks (Let's not forget the 4-3 win over Espanyol! What a game!!!!!!!! :eek: ) and this meant, not even a 5-1 victory today was enough in the last round of the league.

It's great to see 2 legends (Roberto Carlos & Beckham) leave this club after being crowned champs and I'm very happy for them. Also great for Capello because you never knew, with Real board and president being so dumb, they may just have fired him if he had failed to win the league and hence start all the work they needed from scratch again under another manager. :rolleyes:

At the end of the day, the real winner were the millions and millions of La Liga viewers and fans all over the world in my opinion! Such as myself. :D

They gave us great entertainment and some fancy slick passing, technique and movement in every match and I have to thank the Spanish Football federation (And those in charge of setting up this league and all aspects of it), the many talented players who play their trade in this league, the great coaches and managers and most importantly GOLTV for this! :mrgreen:

God bless y'all and ultimately everybody's the winner because (I'm gonna finish the post with the words I started), WHAT A season!!! What a league!!!! :eek:

:applause: \\:o/ :shock: :applause: \\:o/ :shock: :applause: \\:o/ :shock: :applause: \\:o/ :applause: \\:o/ :applause: \\:o/
 
nice post PLF, agree with every single word ;)
congrats to real madrid, barca, sevilla, valencia, saragozza, villareal, and, most of all, athletic bilbao.... i cheered for them for the whole season \\:o/


too bad real sociedad didn't make it. after 29 consecutives years in primera..... next season we won't see them anymore :(

it was a real pleasure to follow la liga this year. by far the most fascinating league in europe (this season) :D
 
I was sad for Real Sociedad too dude.

Especially since they were brave and went away from home to one of the most talented teams in the world and got a 3-3 draw for their effort!! (Only draw because of an OWN goal :( )

Ironic how one own goal helped one Basque side avoid relegation and another own goal condemned the other Basque giant to football in Div 2 next year, isn't it? :p :lol:

Celta Vigo also won against Getafe but at the end of the day, their problem was the same one as Sevilla and Barca. They were not in the driver seat. They had to get the results AND hope for something to go wrong for Betis and Bilbao which simply didn't happen after all.

I'm sad for them but not too much. Because 4 good teams had the chance to avoid relegation and ultimately whether we like it or not, only 2 would avoid it. So there was always gonna be 2 winners and thousands of happy faces and cry out of JOY and 2 teams who would be branded losers and thousands of sad and crying faces as well. :|

This year La Liga was definitely the best followed closely by a very interesting and exciting Bundesliga.

But next year, I'm hoping Serie A and EPL rise to the level of La Liga with the likes of Juve back in Serie A not to mention two big (Fallen clubs) who still have a LOT of fans (many of my friends!) in Napoli and Genoa. :8):

And the likes of Fiorentina, Milan and Lazio NOT starting with minus points like this year which should make the job of Inter defending its title a lot harder and the league more competitive and exciting. :)

And of course, I'm hopeful and excited for EPL too because it remains my joint fav league and it looks to get even better next year and make some ground on La Liga as some of its its NON-title-challenging teams (West Ham, Aston Villa, Liverpool and maybe more.. ) are supposed to and hopefully will bringin higher quality players than they already possess to improve their squad which is what La Liga has done and its recipe for greatness and will hopefully and ultimately making the EPL more high quality, competitive and exciting as well. :8):

So the future of football looks bright to me and has me all excited for the new seasons to start ALREADY! :mrgreen:
 
A sincere plea to the Spanish League - bin the ridiculous head-to-head rule for settling places on equal points. Barcelona's goal difference was 19 better than Real. Head-to head is knockout (Copa del Rey); league is consistency and level of performance over the whole season. Disgraceful for Real to win the title.
 
In the other hand, most of the time, the entire goal average is something like "Barcelona put 5 goals against Nastic and Madrid did only 2".
The head-to-head goal average is useful to define which one of the two teams would win it in a draw case.

Anyway, Real was lucky. If that #7 were good, he would not miss the second goal by 20 cm.
 
Chaps, i'm sure many of you will also be at a loss to discover that Sky sports don't seem to be showing the Copa Del Rey final this weekend.

I have just written to them, via their website to try and find out on earth, despite having shown live games from every round decided to ignore what promises to be a cracking game.

db
 
Have they contacted you back?
denirobob said:
Chaps, i'm sure many of you will also be at a loss to discover that Sky sports don't seem to be showing the Copa Del Rey final this weekend.

I have just written to them, via their website to try and find out on earth, despite having shown live games from every round decided to ignore what promises to be a cracking game.

db
Click to expand...
 
Sevilla won it.

That's a double and could've been an amazing treble but I'm sure they'll be extremely happy with their season anyway and the club's competent chairman, general manager (Monchi) and the rest of the backroom and directors will look to build on it and over the next few years as they look to establish Sevilla as one of Spain's truly top sides and consistently.

That is of course a lot easier said than done, ESPECIALLY in La Liga where there is so many good mid-table ambitious teams full of talent and good players and always fighting to become the 4th behind the big 3.
 
Yeah i hope but that's gonna be tough for them if they don't keep Daniel Alves and Kanouté who says he wants to leave for England
 
Dani Alves is the world's very best so obviously if they lose him, it'll be a BIG blow. Not just because of the great footballing ability he brings to the side but also the character and the charisma and the excitement he brings with his die-hard attitude to the fans.

But every player has his price and can be sufficiently replaced with world-class level of scouting, targeting and acquiring as Lyon and Sevilla themselves have shown is possible in recent years.

They sold Reyes for big bucks to London a few years ago if you remember but used the money to improve the squad overall and it turned out for the best. Then Sergio Ramos who is already a big star left and despite this huge loss, the squad improved again even further by bringing in a number of quality new players and hence this great season where they challenged.

So you can lose big players and still even turn out better than you were. We've seen good examples of that recently with a few clubs that are very well managed behind the scenes and Sevilla is definitely one of them.

As for Kanoute, he was great this year but he won't be that big a miss in my opinion. I highly doubt, even if he was to remain, he'd have even 3/4th as good of a season again next year or in the future as he did this year.

The real blow will be Alves if he's sold but the team still is full of quality in Int'l players like one of Europe's very best (also dirtiest :rolleyes: ) DMF's in Danish player of the year for 3 times in a row now, Christian Poulsen. Adriano, Kerkhakov and youngsters with bags of potential like Jesus Navas. Without going into further depth and talking about just how under-rated their NOT-BIG-name players like Marti, David, Javi Navarro and Renato are for example.

So even if Alves is sold, the team still gets to keep its successful back-bone and will just need to strengthen and replace a couple positions. Plus with the $$$ the Alves sale will bring, they will be able to buy at least 3 very good players! He will cost whoever wants him a SHIT LOAD of money! No doubt about it!

But I wouldn't be worried about them. Because Monchi (General Manager) and Juande Ramos (the head-coach) and the other people in charge of this club now are very competent!

These are the same people who scouted, targeted and bought Dani Alves and Adriano for peanuts each a few years back when nobody knew them, and now after getting great service from them which has resulted in 2 back to back Uefa Cup titles and challenging for La Liga crown, even if they sell, they're likely to get more than 15 times the price they paid!!!!

These are the same people who also managed to get one of the world's very best DMF's in Poulsen on a FREE transfer from Schalke when many other big clubs were after him and have recently and are currently still paying big bucks to land inferior players!

So, I'm very impressed by their back-room. From the new chairman, Jose Maria Del Nido, Monchi and Juande Ramos all the way to the scouts, the physios and everyone else working behind the scenes!

These people KNOW what they're doing and have very concrete and insightful plans it seems.

But of course like I mentioned in the previous post, it'll still be hard to do! Especially when it's in La Liga and there is just SO many other capable teams. If it was another league, it'd be easier and not as competitive. But it's still do-able and I'm sure they're thinking and planning about that for next year, already. ;)
 
Freddy today has just said to the media by the way that he's read a lot of rumours about him in the past couple days that are made up and simply not true.

He said, apparently, I'm tempted to go back to England, but that's not true. I've had 2 wonderful years here (Even though in reality it's only one :p ) and I have 2 more years remaining on my contract which I definitely intend to fulfill. I'm not interested in a move anywhere.

So there you have it. I personally didn't think he'd be a big miss anyway because like I said even if he stays where he is, I'm willing to bet, he will not have another great season like this but it looks like it was another BS story created by English media anyway. So not even worth talking about much more.
 
i was wondering what happened to the copa del rey final
 
sky dropped the ball with that one.
 
The Sids! - Our sixth end-of-season La Liga gongs honour the good, the bad and the downright bizarre from the past year in Spain.

And so the longest, weirdest and most fabulously topsy-turvy season finally
comes to an end. A season which went from really rubbish to really brilliant
in a flash, a season that changed hands in just 18 seconds, a season when
none of the top six had managed to win two successive games in a total of 54
matches, but then suddenly put together brilliant runs as we reached the
home straight. A season in which Real Madrid somehow managed to win the
league, turning round the result in seven of their final eight matches and
losing just once in their last 16 to take it on the head-to-head rule; in
which Barcelona threw it all away; and in which Sevilla just ran out of
energy, missing a golden, possibly unique opportunity.

Still, at least Sevilla carried off the Uefa Cup and the Copa del Rey, while
Madrid were reborn - ugly and crying but reborn nonetheless - and Atlético
suffered yet another false dawn. At the other end, Athletic lived to fight
another day, Sociedad finally went down for the first time in 40 years,
having flirted with relegation once too often, Nastic took 54 years to come
back up and just one to go back down again, while Celta took the same
journey. For Barça, meanwhile, there is just recrimination and regret. Oh,
and an award or too. Starting with ...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/06/27/its_the_sids_2007.html
 
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