Spain
Sean O'Conor,
Ponferrada, Spain
Spanish football had a summer nightmare as La Roja meekly
surrendered their world crown in Brazil, crashing out in the first round with
only a dead rubber win over Australia to point to. But lest we forget, La Liga clubs made a clean sweep of UEFA trophies last season, as Real Madrid won the Champions League & Super Cup and Sevilla the Europa League.
While the national team finally returned to winning ways
with a 5-1 victory over Macedonia in their first Euro 2016 qualifier, the Primera has also resumed proceedings with the annual Barça-Real ding-dong back into full
swing.
Barcelona have resumed normal service, topping the Primera
after six outings with five wins and a draw. Real Madrid have started more
slowly, surprisingly losing their opening two games of the season, away at Real
Sociedad and at home to Atletico Madrid.
Their city rivals are of course the reigning champions and
Champions League runners-up, and it is very much to be hoped they can maintain
that success to make the race for the Spanish title at least a little more
interesting than a tussle between the usual two suspects.
Valencia is the most likely candidate to make it a
four-horse race and the club coached by Portuguese Nuno Espirito Santo have
made an encouraging start and find themselves second to Barça so far, just
ahead of Atletico and Europa League winners Sevilla.
The rest of the Spanish top flight once more looks
depressingly weedy however, with the likes of Almeria, Eibar and Getafe unlikely to set
many pulses racing.
Barça v Real may be an overblown, vulgar carnival at least
twice a season, but the pulling power of the star-heavy lineups remains undeniable.
Their first clash, at the Bernabeu on the 25th of
October, has been on people's lips since the start of the campaign, particularly
as it will feature the long-awaited debut of Luis Suarez for the blaugrana.
If the domestic league turns out to be as predictable as ever, then at
least in Europe the big two Spanish clubs face a battle. There is also Atletico
and Athletic Bilbao making up Spain's Champions League quartet.
After last season's all-Madrid final, Barcelona will be eager
to make their mark again in the competition they dominated so impressively three seasons ago under Pep Guardiola.
After edging past Cyprus' Apoel unconvincingly 1-0, their
first real test comes tonight away to Paris Saint-Germain, with their old boy
Zlatan Ibrahimovic eager to prove a point. Ajax are the other team in their
group.
Real began more convincingly thumping Basel 5-1 and look to
have an easier ride to the knock-out stages with Liverpool and Bulgaria's
Ludogorets Razgrad to come.
Atletico lost their opening clash 3-2 away to Olympiakos,
and must now up their game to finish second in a group containing Juventus and
Malmo.
Athletic, who qualified after defeating Napoli in the
play-off round, have a reasonable group on paper of Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk and
Bate Borisov but have also started slowly, drawing 0-0 at home to Shakhtar.
In the Europa League, Real Sociedad surprisingly crashed out
3-1 to Russia's Krasnodar in the play-off round, leaving Villareal and holders
Sevilla flying the Spanish flag.
Villareal won a crucial point away to Group A rivals
Borussia Moenchengladbach and should make it through against Apollon Limassol
and Zurich, while Sevilla began with aplomb, beating Feyenoord 2-0 in Group G,
with Rijeka and Standard Liege to come.
La Roja look like they have finally left the stage of global greatness after two European Championships and one World Cup across five magical years, but with a Euro 2016 qualifying group featuring the modest talents of Belarus, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Slovakia and Ukraine, Vicente Del Bosque has the luxury of time to rebuild and rethink.
In European club competition however, the expectation and pressure for Spanish gold is as great as ever.
(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile