La Liga in a level crisis?

By Charly
October 18 2005

With only seven rounds played, The Spanish League finds itself immersed in many odd situations. These are getting more attention than the game itself, and in fact this is a consequence of the decline in the level of football in Spain. Is there a real problem in Liga or what?

The Spanish Liga is one of the most important leagues in the world, everyone knows that. Built on economic power and a compromise with a good show, it reaches hundreds of millions of people who watch it all around the globe. It is really important, it is huge if you think about the money, marketing, the players, the power, etc., but in the end, it all comes down to football.

This new edition of the league is struck by many cases of controversy and polemics that divert the attention from football. Contract and legal issues (like Lionel Messi’s case), marketing and promoting teams’ names abroad (exhausting tours in Asia) and transfer market stories are situations that have always been present in La Liga. And the new case that is getting greater relevance is the ferocious attacks towards referees.

These problems exist in every league, but it seems that in Spain they have become even more important than the game itself. In fact, there must be something about the game that makes these issues more important. And there is, the quality of the game has decreased shockingly.

Today there is no team in Spain that can be said to be playing the nice football that is expected to see. Barcelona, the title holders, are very irregular and can’t find the right track. Real Madrid is still the very unbalanced result of great individuals with a pathetic idea of teamwork and group. Valencia, Deportivo La Coruña and other important teams have changed a lot and still can’t find their identity.

Let’s have a quick glance at what are, probably, the main ideas in Spanish football. First, talented players are needed in order to develop good football. Second, these talented players should be respected and for the sake of a good show, it would be nice if they were allowed to deploy their game. This can be seen as players have more room and freedom in Spain than in Italy and England, where there can still be a commitment with good football but defending is more aggressive, tidy, organized and important.

Now, it looks like these ideas have been taken to an extreme. Teams who have talented players depend heavily on them and most of their game is based on giving the ball to those who have the magic wands, and as rival defenses are letting them play, it works. But then there are some other teams, smaller ones, that do not have those great talented players, their only key to victory is hard work and a tight team, maybe threatening a bit the idea of giving the rival good players that freedom that ensures the good show.

This way, we have the two extremes leading in the table. Real Madrid, completely individual talented players, and Osasuna, trying to avoid relegation with hard work, are the two leaders. Getafe, that had been leading until last round, was another example of hard work, but the lack of quality in these sides makes them harmless and prevents them from deploying complex tactics.

So we have got the hard working sides that do not treat the ball nice and thus don’t contribute to a nice game, and the team with all the talents, that can’t work as a team and win thanks to individual moves helped by neglecting defenses, and that doesn’t quite contribute to the team sport football is either.

With such problems in the game it is not strange that the referees’ performances become so important and their mistakes change the results of matches. Perhaps if there was a bit more sacrifice in the league, if the talented players were not over-respected and were seen as players just like the rest, but without losing the nice ball treatment, maybe spectators would get better shows, there wouldn’t be such difference between the teams, team strategy and tactics would flourish again and efficiently as well as each player’s technique.

But as long as there is a big difference existing in the treatment of talented players and the rest of them (from both the players themselves and the rest of the football world), important teams will become even more important while small teams will become smaller, important players will have more and more privileges while normal ones will have to work harder and harder, groups will never be consolidated, training will not be as important in improvement as it should be and the football level will keep falling.

Let’s hope that the ones in charge of changing realize that football has always been eleven men against another eleven men and that there are no differences between them. Everyone has got a good chance of winning and deploying a nice game, treat the ball nicely, with hard work, sacrifice, training, and that is both defending and attacking. There are just some invisible, implicit barriers to pull down in order to regain the great level La Liga once had.