La Liga Weekly

La Liga is not a league that is usually free-and-clear, open to a load of foreign investment. There was talk about Real Mallorca being bought by English interests a few years ago and Italian ownership of RCD Espanyol has been lurking on the edges of possibility for awhile now, but according to a Qatari newspaper, cited here in Mundo Deportivo, that a consortium of Qatari interests led by Shiehk Abdullah bin Naser al Zani has bought Malaga CF club from [...]

It is so easy to get caught up in the spectacle that is Diego Armando Maradona’s Argentina. We see the cigars and the little bearded man with the belly, trainers riding up on his back, and we hear the pronouncements like, “the players can have sex with their wives and girlfriends during the World Cup. Players are not Martians, but it shouldn’t be at 2 am with champagne and Havana cigars” or the fact that the man promised to run [...]

The new Atletico Madrid kits for 2010-2911 are in and I have to say that I am truly impressed. The home kit continues to be a simple and classy design, but there are differences. The red collar and piping is gone leaving more white making this seem a very traditional Atleti kit. It may also be a trick of the lighting, but the shorts seem slightly lighter in tone as well The away kit is a much better fit than the all [...]

Guest writer/James Dielhenn The reputation that precedes Germany suggests that they will be there or thereabouts for World Cup glory this summer in South Africa. But in reality this is far from Germany’s strongest ever team, and they are missing their influential captain. Joachim Low’s men were a long way from spectacular during their qualifying campaign, but displayed the rugged never-say-die attitude that has been Germany’s trademark for years. They were able to qualify top of their group without too [...]

End Of Season Awards: Here are my picks for the 2009-2010 season. What are yours? Team of the season La Liga: Barcelona. 99 points and their second consecutive La Liga title. If Mallorca had secured that final Champions League spot I might have been swayed. As it is they’ll be in Europe but without chief architect, coach Gregorio Manzano who quit and their economic situation might just leave them out altogether. La Liga Player of the Year: Lionel Messi. 47 [...]

Date: (Saturday) May 29, 2010 Venue: Tivoli-Neu (Innsbruck, Austria) Kick-Off: 20:00 CET/2pm EST (ESPN3.com) Many would say would is the point of this match with The World Cup in South Africa due to start in two weeks? Isn’t the mighty La Furia Roja “The Red Fury” risking injury to one of their world class players? Spain has many key players either returning from injury: Fabregas (broken fibula) and Torres (back) or being given a chance to earn a vital cap [...]

Rather than tell you what my thoughts are of the signing, it’s obvious if you’ve been reading so far, but rather than present my thoughts as of right now I’ll hold off until we get more of an idea what his staff is going to look like and what the news signings will be. Instead, we’ll take a trip through the Spanish papers. As.com: Madrid believe that Mourinho will be presented to the media on Tuesday. In an interview with [...]

John Carlin is a writer of prodigious talent, and wide-ranging interests. If you saw the movie Invictus you may know of his more recent work, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation, and while he may be friendly with the like of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu and how rugby helped change the face of South African politics, the man also knows his football, and especially the place where politics, globalization and the media intersect with [...]

As a student traveling around Spain back in 1996, I had a chance to see nearly every region of the country, yet the one that most captured my heart and attention was Galicia. Maybe it was my father’s Irish side that beckoned me to that northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula where there was plenty of albarino to drink, pulpo to eat and some decent futbol to watch. As the name suggests, the region of Galicia has Gaelic roots and [...]

Official: “The Special One” will now lead Los Blancos! We all knew this was going to happen. Jose Mourinho, now former Inter Milan manager, will be taking over the reins at Real Madrid C.F. If anyone ever questioned or were concerned with the intensity and often craziness of the Spanish media, they haven’t seen anything like Mourinho. Perez, informed the press that Manuel Pelligrini would be no longer the manager of Real Madrid and also mentioned that no one is [...]

Just as the season has closed and the transfer window beacons, we at La Liga Weekly would like to say that we will be following all of the matches leading up to the World Cup, all of the news and features, and we will be giving you a better lens at La Furia Roja as it tries to do what so few international squads have ever done: win the World Cup. As it stands Brazil, England, France, Italy, Germany, Argentina, [...]

Guest writer/James DielhennUruguay may have won the first ever World Cup on their home turf in 1930, but recent years have seen that status as a top team dwindle. After failing to qualify at all in 2006, Uruguay needed to beat Costa Rica in a play-off to book their place in South Africa. Oscar Tabarez, who led Uruguay to the quarter-finals of Italia ’90 as manager, is back for his stint in the job, and his side finished fifth in [...]