It’s the ultimate of two horse races but last year’s La Liga
was a one horse procession as Barcelona once again ruled the roost on their way
to a 15 point win as they broke the 100 point barrier in style despite being
well and truly dominated on the European stage by Bayern Munich twice, and
while returning to the top of the European tree will be at the top of the priority
list for Gerardo Martino, Barcelona may get a nasty shock on home soil thanks
to Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid.
It’s a rare occasion when managerial blame is laid at the
door of Jose Mouriniho but much of the progress of the squad over the last
three years went backwards when the Portugese failed to have the absolute control
that he wanted over one of the world’s most volatile clubs – a situation that
always threatened to blow up and become a mega issue, which proved itself true
in the worst sense as private disagreements became rifts and rifts became a series of public arguments with his players,
Iker Casillas and Cristiano Ronaldo among them, polizaring the dressing room completely
and wrecking any title hopes before they had begun.
In this age of ‘the big two’ dominating and the chasm
between them and the rest growing with every system, and in the age when draws
have become essentially defeats and defeats don’t bear thinking about, anything
less than total and utter commitment from start to finish would have done.
Jose worked out the formula Madrid needed to beat Barcelona
but focused too hard on that they he created a counterproductive problem where
Real are anaemic towards large amounts of possession and struggled to break
teams down that allowed them possession and tried to use the counterattacking instincts
that saw them beat Barcelona twice in a week, while failing to control the
destiny of the team and the club in the way he’d have liked.
His replacement, Carlo Ancelotti, requires no such influence
and should be able to bind a team that’s nowhere near as inferior to Barcelona
as last season’s results suggested and well capable of being able to match them
over the course of the next 9 months. Ancelotti hasn’t changed up a whole lot
at Madrid in terms of personnel, indulging his personal admirations for Asier
Illaramendi from Real Sociedad and Isco from Malaga, both of whom will be integrated
into the midfield over the next couple of seasons, while he essentially inherits
the same squad that Jose had barring Gonazlo Higuain’s exit to Napoli. It looks
to us as if Real won’t get Gareth Bale, but that shouldn’t be a big matter with
Benezema well capable of leading the line and Di Maria allowed to take a bigger
goalscoring role. In a two horse race, take the
Barcelona played football as good as we’ve seen under Pep
when walking the title last year and are worthy favourites, but will be in a
real race this time around rather than having it handed to them on a plate and
were flattered by their winning margin of 15 points even if they did reach the
100 point barrier.
Off season attention has been focused entirely on the
arrival of Neymar and Tito Villanova’s tragic news – and may he get well as
soon as possible and make a full recovery – with Neymar’s arrival potentially
bringing a new dimension to Barcelona’s attack in a dream pairing with Messi,
coming here off the back of a wonderful Confederations Cup where he lived upto
his hype fully and then some when demolishing his opposition. As a potential replacement
for Messi in time of injury and tiredness, and another major goalscoring option
as well, his addition is a fine tone to a squad that already had everything it
needed. One could argue that another centreback would go nicely, but that’s a
Champions League issue against the elite that shouldn’t matter in this context.
The gap towards the rest grows even bigger with the exodus
of players who aren’t from the big two more rapid than ever this season, so the
gap could grow even bigger with the TV imbalance leaving all but the top two in
all but their own little world.
Sociedad have lost their start Illarramendi and their coach
from last season, Valencia have lost Roberto Soldado, Málaga lost Jérémy Toulalan,
Joaquín, Júlio Baptista, Isco, and Pellegrini, Betis lost both central
midfielders, including Beñat. Vallecano
have been decimated and Sevilla sold Jesús Navas and Negredo to City, although
they’ve bought well to replace.
Nobody’s replaced quite as well as Athletico Madrid, 11
points clear of the rest of the field in third last year, who lost their
talisman Falcao but made the incredibly smart move of buying the severely
underused and mistreated David Villa from Barcelona for a fraction of the price,
while having also kept hold of Thibaut Courtois for another season on loan
along with Diego Costa, scorer of 10 goals last year who should prove to be a reliable
understudy after being kept away from Liverpool. Crucially, Diego Simone
remains, and despite the loss of their biggest player if anything Atletico look
more stable than their rivals and if anything on paper more improved, so take
them to be the best of the rest.
Advice
3 pts Real Madrid (7/5 Youwin)
5 pts Athletico Madrid w/o Barcelona and Real Madrid (11/8
Paddy Power)
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