La liga española 2019-20 (including Pique's Andorra): opiniones y rumores aquí

[Sporting]

Piqué spends some money:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/49157454

In other news Valencia CF start creating a crisis out of nothing;

https://www.marca.com/en/football/sp...f248b45d7.html

And we don't even know what day the season will start.

It's all perfectly normal.

[ursus arctos]

Sometimes I think that the colony of feral cats at the Nou Mestalla could do a better job of running the club

[ad hoc]

Couple of spectacular goals by Espanyol at Hillsborough in the pre season friendly there yesterday. The second one scored by Chinese forward Wu Lei, cheered on by what I assume were representatives of the Chinese community of Sheffield who'd come along to watch him. (at about 4:10 in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJE2gpMUZCY - terrible defending to set him up, but he took it well )

[ursus arctos]

Oh goody, the Mourinho to Valencia rumours are hotting up

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

That andorra stadium looks like one of those cartoons by that guy whose name I can't remember even though I had a huge print on my wall as a kid.

[Jon]

Mordillo.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

YES!!!!!

[Jon]

There was a rumour about a girl at my school who was said to be Mordillo's illegitimate child.

I had this one on my wall:



Anyway, it's nice to see Mallorca back in the top flight after 6 years absence.

[Nocturnal Submission]

He only pegged out a few weeks ago.

[Satchmo Distel]

What's the minimum capacity for the third tier?

[ursus arctos]

Given that it has 80 clubs at any one time (and close to 400 over its history), I'm not sure that there are meaningful ground requirements

[Sporting]

ursus is correct.

For example Lugo's stadium has a capacity of just over 8,000 and they play in the second division. Sporting B play home matches at the local training ground, Mareo. There are dozens of other examples.

[ursus arctos]

The RFEF's idea of banning matches on Friday and Monday was mentioned elsewhere, but is worthy of discussion here. The league claims that it would violate 50 current television contracts that require hat matches be played at such times and have gone to the courts seeking an injunction against the federation implementing its decision.

I haven't read any of the underlying documents and am far from an expert on Spanish contract law, but my guess is that la Liga wins this round but that there is a reduction in the volume of non-weekend matches for the next set of television contracts.

For those who don't follow la Liga closely, it is worth noting that the obligation to play on Friday or Monday falls disproportionately on the "smaller" clubs, some of whom have gone months without a single match at a weekend.

[Sporting]

Clubs involved in European competition are not obliged to play on Friday or Monday.

[ursus arctos]

Yes, but I think that I have seen stats that the burden falls disproportionately even within the group of non-European clubs.

[Sporting]

I've been trying to find stats but have been unsuccessful as yet. However, and I think this is surprising, Athletic Club had to play more times than most last season on Friday and Monday.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Rayo fans were definitely grumbling about their string of Monday fixtures adding pressure to their relegation battle when I went in April

[Nocturnal Submission]

ITV are going to be showing some live La Liga games plus regular highlights packages.

Huzzah.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I'm impressed that no-one was interested in the rights until now. How much were la liga looking for?

[Nocturnal Submission]

No idea. Maybe La Liga is beginning to lose a little bit of its lustre.

[ursus arctos]

Or it might just be la Liga's incompetence

https[URL="https://twitter.com/brendyboyle/status/1161897979785166849?s=21"]//twitter.com/brendyboyle/status/1161897979785166849[/URL]

[Lang Spoon]

Weren't viewing figures for Rafa's Mate Giullem in the studio and Gerry Fuckin Armstrong reminiscing about Real Mallorca on pitchside commentary duties for Sky vanishingly small anyways? Outside the Classico games obvs.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

So it would seem. Even figures for classicos weren't that great after a while. Some seasons you could have 6-8 of these games. The novelty can wear off after a while.

That perhaps the most regionally diverse country in europe, essentially has only three meaningful football clubs, rammed into the two biggest cities, tells you a lot about Spanish society doesn't it? If there was a country in Europe that could plausibly support a GAA style localism based football culture you'd think it would be spain. the 40,000 qualified coaches is the hard part of this.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Meaningful requires winning trophies, then..?

[ursus arctos]

Hazard has a muscle injury and will miss Madrid's opener