La Liga - 2014/15

Skorenzy said:
I'm not too familiar with him indeed, but at any rate I meant it more in terms of career trajectory than as playing style. Still he's also quite small and stocky and from some of the plays I've seen he's explosive with a good first touch and close control. I believe he did have more assists than goals for San Lorenzo, so in that sense he's a lot different from Kun.
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He is still very raw.. I think for him to have an impact on Atletico's season we will need to wait 2 or 3 years.. In the games I watched, he just runs very fast in a maze. Piatti (also from San Lorenzo) though, looks like a great player
 
With three days to go until clubs have to present all their registration documents to La Liga, clubs are still trying to get their tax office sign-offs.

From Liga 1 - Espanyol and Getafe
From Liga 2 - Racing, Murcia, Recre, Zaragoza and Sporting

Several of them are on the list because the instalment plans they had agreed to pay the taxes they owe have been revoked. Some of them had been given 7 years and that's now been reduced to 5 maximum and so on. Others have missed part of an installment. The race is on for them to get either new payment deals signed off or to find the extra cash to get their tax certificate in time.
 
Interested to see how Atletico goes this season. Bakkali, if Simeone can burst his talents, is an excellent signing. They'll probably sign 1 or 2 more players too before La Liga starts. I just hope Peter Lim finalises his takeover of Valencia and starts working this summer. A top 4 would be absolutely exciting.
 
Murcia have failed the financial viability test set by La Liga and are automatically relegated from Liga 2 to 2B.

Racing Santander are still trying to put together a balanced budget and have until the 7th August to do it or the same thing happens to them. Incidentally Racing were in the 2Bs last year, but got promoted.

Racing are still trying to recover from what amounted to a fake rescue a few years ago by a wealthy foreign investor, who turned out not to be so generous (or wealthy) after all. Last season the players came out on the pitch but refused to play a Copa game against Real Sociedad. The RS players basically passed the ball around among themselves until the ref called the game off. That protest, because players hadn't been paid, led to management changes but the debt issue is still unresolved.
 
fontaine said:
He is still very raw.. I think for him to have an impact on Atletico's season we will need to wait 2 or 3 years.. In the games I watched, he just runs very fast in a maze. Piatti (also from San Lorenzo) though, looks like a great player
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Nacho Piatti? Isn't he like 30 now?


Some more interesting signings meanwhile... Córdoba get Fausto Rossi on loan from Juve (he had an impressive spell at Valladolid last season), Borja Ekiza moves to Eibar (after being usurped from a starting spot by the impressive Laporte) and is joined there by Dani Nieto of Barça B. Espanyol signed Paco Montañés from Zaragoza who looked bright the season they went down.

Getafe find their Moyá replacement in Vicente Guaita, the man of sporadic impressive performances (mostly against the top teams), but inconsistent over an entire season... basically a more talentend version of the goalie they already have, Codina. Málaga replace their Willy-shaped hole in goal with the World Cup's Guillermo Ochoa. I think this one'll fall into the "top" rather than "flop" column of transfer assessments. And lastly on the GK front, Celta's Yoel goes to Valencia on loan (actually I've also read reports saying it's a 4-year contract, @jojojo any clue?) after an impressive debut season in La Liga to keep Diego Alves on his toes.

Chelsea's Kakuta goes on his billionth loan, to Rayo. If he can't show off his offensive prowess there he never will.
Seferovic is off to Frankfurt after a disappointing season with La Real (only 2 goals in the league)... Hopefully Finnbogason works out better (he's a far more proven goalscorer so that's a positive sign) and doesn't get injured, because watching Agirretxe (or Aggertatse as the Scottish commentator on my stream pronounced it -- quite bizarrely by the way dubbed over the broadcast of the Basque channel ETB K) v Aberdeen yesterday was fairly tragicomedic.
 
Skorenzy said:
And lastly on the GK front, Celta's Yoel goes to Valencia on loan (actually I've also read reports saying it's a 4-year contract, @jojojo any clue?) after an impressive debut season in La Liga to keep Diego Alves on his toes.
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I think it's really a sale, for around €2m. However it looks like it's structured as a one year loan with an "obligation to buy" rather than an option to buy, next summer. I had a quick dig to see why they would do that and it looks like Celta have met their agreed tax payments for this year but if they got €2m in as a fee, they would have to hand over €1m of it to the tax office immediately to clear their debt faster. By postponing the payment until next year I guess it gives them a head start on next year's tax debt repayment.

The joys of being a Liga club!
 
So Murcia were demoted from Liga 2 to the 2Bs because they couldn't present a balanced budget to La Liga. However Murcia say La Liga didn't give them a chance to balance the budget and the threat of forced administrative relegation was the reason they couldn't balance it.

Whatever their case was and I admit I've not read the details, apparently it was sufficient for a Judge in Madrid to agree to a demand from them to return them to Liga2 pending evidence of actual budget deficit rather than threatened deficit. La Liga has responded by postponing the whole of next week's Liga2 schedule and threatening to sue for damages of €4m because of the loss of revenue and extra costs due to the postponement.

Murcia's appeal to Liga arbitration has already failed. We now wait for the court to look at the case again. Everyday life amongst the minnows.
 
Matchday 1 - 23 Aug and Welcome Back!
La Liga restarts. Murcia were briefly reinstated to Liga 2, the LFP even toyed with the idea of a 23 team Liga2, however Murcia lost an appeal and are now down in 2B again.

Liga1 this weekend (from the BBC so all times are UK):
Saturday
Málaga v Athletic Bilbao 18:00
Granada CF v Deportivo de La Coruña 20:00
Sevilla v Valencia CF 20:00
Almería v Espanyol 22:00

Sun 24 Aug 2014 - Spanish La Liga
Eibar v Real Sociedad 18:00
Barcelona v Elche 20:00
Celta de Vigo v Getafe 20:00
Levante v Villarreal 22:00

Mon 25 Aug 2014 - Spanish La Liga
Real Madrid v Córdoba 19:00
Rayo Vallecano v Atlético Madrid 21:00

OK. I admit it's not the most inspiring fixture list. Most of the interest probably comes from the new signings and seeing which teams are ready for the season.

However a couple of ones that will interest me.
Sevilla v Valencia. Valencia are mid squad review and right now it's not obvious that they're stronger. However they should be back fighting for Europe this year so Sevilla is a good test for them.
Eibar v Real Sociedad. They don't come much smaller than Eibar. Saved from relegation to the 2Bs (rather than promotion to Liga1) by €2m, raised by lots of small share sales. They've assembled a team out of their own players, loans, and free/cheap transfers (including young players released by Liga 1 clubs) and they're ready to run. Fittingly they begin Liga1 life with a local derby against a team that historically has sent young players (like Xabi Alonso) to them as loans for toughening up purposes!
 
8 live games on sky sports this weekend. Crazy amount of football. Will try catch as many as possible.
 
Neymar and Pedro are almost definitely out of the Barça game by the way. Suárez obviously out too, and Deulofeu loaned out so the Catalan media expect Munir, Messi and Rafinha as the front three. Interesting.

I'm looking forward to see Rafinha, but I think he's much better playing as a centre midfielder.
 
Some really bad refereeing decisions robbed Bilbao in extra time. No idea why the goal was disallowed.
 
Just caught the end of that game. Crazy finish, wtf has he disallowed that goal for? Stupid refereeing, just pointing all the over the place looking animated like he was correct.
 
More important question is, why is Lahoz still a referee? Beggars belief why the goal was disallowed.
 
Another season, another year of the least informed commentators in football on Sky's Spanish football coverage.

3 times (twice by one guy, once by the other guy) in the first 45 minutes have they mentioned that Gaya is Valencia's new young leftback taking over from Alberto Moreno who left in the summer.

Moreno of course played for Valencia's opponents today, Sevilla. And Juan Bernat is the one who left.
 
Tough luck for Deulofeu, Emery gets him amped to come on and then proceeds to changes his mind once he saw Iborra got injured. Suarez played very well as did Bacca but they really are missing Rakitic
 
OK. I admit that I've been somewhat distracted tonight by news in muppetland. So I know nothing about the match I just "watched" which ended Sevilla 1 Valencia 1

However I have to mention Rodrigo de Paul, making his debut for Valencia tonight. He came on in the 20th minute of the second half and was sent off in the 21st. Great work from the young Argentinian. :lol:
 
Amazing (possibly unintentional) free kick there! Just put Eibar 1-0 up in their first ever La Liga game.

Beaten to it :(
 
Munir and Rafinha getting a start, should be an interesting watch as both are very highly rated.
 
Did Barca buy any defender other than Mathieu? That back four looks shocking to be honest.
 
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