La Liga Weekly

I know this is a little late but I wanted the hype to die down a little bit. It’s not a fluff topic and it’s not going to go away no matter how many madridistas throw themselves under the Jose Mourinho bus and plead with him to stay after the end of this season. It’s almost decided that he’ll win the league. Barcelona might win the individual battles but they’ll lose the war. It’s a war of attrition and their [...]

There will be no Barcelona Observer or Real Madrid Corner this week, as if anyone had anything to say other than that today the two giants in Spanish football will face each other in the second rivalry match of the campaign. Sorry, but I refuse to call this a derby match. I´m sort of a stickler for certain bits and derbies are matches between city rivals. The expectation is that José Mourinho will play it close in the first match, [...]

5 years ago Marcelino García Toral was on top of the world. He guided not only Recreativo de Huelva to promotion in 2006 and their best ever finish that year at 8th on the table the subsequent year, but repeated the feat at Racing Santander the following year finishing a club record 6th on table.  He turned down an opportunity to guide Valencia CF and went to the second division with Real Zaragoza to rescue that grand club. He was [...]

Athletic Bilbao: with Pep Guardiola on a series of yearly contracts, the Spanish media continues to speculate about possible replacements should the Barcelona manager choose to follow his muse out of town. One of the names mentioned by Guardiola himself is current Athletic coach Marcelo Bielsa. It would be a return of sorts to the Ciudad Condal, as Bielsa spent a few short months in 1998 in charge of RCD Espanyol. Bielsa refuses to speak about hypothetical situations, and Athletic [...]

José Mourinho has been pining for an English return practically from the moment he was fired, or stepped down, or was let go by the Russian oligarch at Chelsea FC. It´s an issue that crept up when he was holiday for that year in 2007-2008, when he on the sidelines at the Giuseppe Meazza Inter, and practically from the moment he stepped foot at the Santiago Bernabéu. It´s a love-affair from the moment he stepped off the plane. He suits [...]

Headline: That was certainly the headline that was running around newspapers yesterday, and not just the usual suspects either, no there were call coming from all over the world in favor of just handing the reigns to the Argentine Ballon D´or winner. I wish they would just stop with the heavy-handed praise for a kid who is just beginning his career. He´s the best there is at the moment, but not the best of all-time, not yet at least, but [...]

We cover La Liga, the Spanish Primera and Segunda here, and we try to offer the league with an unbiased eye or at least not so biased an eye that would force you to keep coming here. It´s not about separating into our tribal councils, it´s about sharing our passion for our league and our teams. So I try not to let my colors show all that much, but I´m an RCD Espanyol fan at heart. I bleed blue and [...]

I was listening to an NPR podcast the other day and the discussion revolved on what figure, whether a musician or writer, actor or director, and in this case for these purposes here a manager or player, you have had a complete change of heart on? In other words, have you liked or disliked someone so much that it became obsessive and you have done an about face and you say to yourself, ¨How could I have ever thought that [...]

After a long and torturous winter-break, the Primera returns for its second go-around. The players are well-rested and relaxed, if a bit sluggish really from all the merriment, but whether they are ready or not, we certainly are, and we demand entertainment. If this weekend is any indication, we are in for plenty. First, let me reset the stage: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are unlikely to deal in the winter market, and most other clubs are in a crisis-induced [...]

Goyo Manzano, if we look back on his achievements and stop with his last few weeks in charge of Real Mallorca in 2010, was a successful and well-respected coach looking to parley that magical season where the Andalusian coach had the minnows in a Champions League place for much of the season into a significant pay-day. He had earned it. Mallorca on the other hand couldn´t afford his salary let alone give him a raise. He would wait, the offers [...]

I´d say one of the most important storylines that all the major papers are talking about in Spain this week is the idea that CR7, one of the great footballers of this and any age is taking the brunt of the criticism for having lost all but one encounter with FC Barcelona since his time at Real Madrid. Even Marca and As.com were ganging up on the Lusitanian. He’s Real Madrid´s #7, one of the great numbers that have ever [...]

La Liga Weekly would like to point the spotlight at our own Arch Bell, master of the Segunda division here on the site, who was featured prominently at Marca.com in their build-up to this weekend´s clásico. They interviewed journalists from around the world and asked them how the game will be welcomed in their little part of the world. I really think that journalists in Spain are still somewhat bemused by the attention that La Liga gets all over the [...]