La Liga Round 1.1: Standing at the Crossroads

It is an interesting point for La Liga, sitting at a crossroads here before the beginning of the second day of the first round, where we have already seen Malaga beat Celta 1-0, Sevilla beat Getafe 2-1, and Mallorca beat Espanyol 2-1. Talking superficially, the games were open and fast-paced, the score-lines while close, were imminently capable of breaking apart, and you would be hard-pressed to call these matches anything but entertaining. They weren´t.

It reminds me of a quote by Woody Allen: ¨More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.¨ As bright a first day of matches as it seemed, I couldn´t get that quote from my head. Maybe it´s the fact that while the season started on time there is still the specter of unrest. The television broadcasters are still fighting for their piece of the pie. The government is letting the crisis simmer by their inaction. The radio broadcasters are unhappy because while they have been let into the stadiums to commentate on the games, it isn´t the free and easy access that they have traditionally known. Everyone is struggling to find that one elusive penny from an empty drawer. Thirteen clubs are steaming to be allowed a larger piece of the pie when everyone knows that what most of them want is another under-the-table bribe to go away, and the more naive clubs will continue braying for equity that will never come. The stadiums are empty. Atmosphere is gone. Ratings for clubs other than Real Madrid and Barcelona are minuscule.

Then again it is always nice to see the players play. Spain are World and European champions, and you get to see the extent of the years of youth development and training on the field every single week. Sevilla´s Jesus Navas is fast, a darting little missile with deft control on the wings. Malaga´s Isco is another in a long-line of smallish, brainy creators in the middle. Even Joan Capdevila, the aging Lieutenant at the back of Espanyol´s wing, is a welcome addition, back from his Portuguese blockade where his services were never clearly wanted, his skill certainly but his leadership could make or break the relegation hopes of a once ambitious club.

And that´s where I think this crossroads is for me. At this time, a crossroads between the first match day of matches and the second, with the hype machine calling for Real Madrid and Barcelona to begin their season-long tango, all I can say is how ordinarily bleak it loo ks for clubs in that third tier of Spanish first division clubs; the ones who we so often mark for their ability to compete for European slots.

For so long we have been touting the ability of anywhere from the third combatant (the Valencias and Sevillas) to the fifteenth (a Malaga or Levante) to compete in the Champions League or Europa League. In the past that has been down to their technique and their gifts, but that´s not the case anymore. The best players have left, well to be honest the best ones that haven´t qualified for Real Madrid and Barcelona, but it was evident that the talent level between Celta and Malaga, or Sevilla and Getafe, or Mallorca and Espanyol was miniscule, and that is not a plus. The talent level is sinking.

Now we shall see if that continues, as we see the board shift and many of the above teams play each other in the coming weeks, oh and the fact that we haven´t seen how the second day´s actions pan out, and I might be proven wrong. We might see Bielsa´s Athletic rise to a different level after the Llorente and Martinez fiascos. Valencia and Real Sociedad might both impress against the Spanish giants. Our eyes might be again distracted by incisive passing or the marvelous goals, or the gravity of a Barcelona or Real Madrid win, but I can´t help but think  that we stand at a point like the one Woody Allen describes.

One way leads to despair and hopelessness; more players file out to better paying leagues in Germany, France, Italy and England leaving a shell of a league that may be seen in a worse light than Scotland as there is much more to lose in Spain. The other path leads to utter destruction. If an Arabian sheik can find no solace for his investments, no return on his capital, and the television companies are arguing over pesetas, while the Government sits idly by, and the truly honest men are forced from the process, then there is even less hope than that. It could just be I need to go back on the happy pills, but I am not so enthusiastic about the future of Spanish futbol.