So far in the transfer window we have witnessed a massive loss of talent in La Liga. Players like Falcao, Negredo, Soldado, Navas, Thiago, Llorente and Higuain have opted to leave to Spain and play abroad. La Liga lost a massive amount of talent in the attacking third with its 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th top goal scorers (a shocking 93 goals between them) leaving.

Atletico used less than 3M of the 60M to replace Falcao with Villa, the rest going to ease debts. (Costa could be going to Liverpool soon?)

Valencia is headed down and fast and will most likely find a cheap replacement for Soldado who was our only threat most of the season.

Sevilla is the only team that have made any real replacements with the loan of Marin and signing of Gameiro.

The next season will be the same as every other season. Real Madrid and Barcelona will battle it out for the title meanwhile the other teams drag behind. The gulf of power between them two and the rest of the league is getting worse as time passes on. We can only expect the third place team (my prediction is Real Sociedad) to finish a staggering 20 plus points behind them.

Competition is getting weaker and weaker as anytime a team gets any real talent in its rank they are quickly snatched by Barcelona or Madrid as first picks and after teams overseas get at them.

Unless and until La Liga clubs force Real and Barcelona into collective TV bargaining like the EPL, their revenues are not going to pick up. This year, Reading which finished 19th in the PL and got relegated earned 40m pounds (~46m euros) from TV broadcasts compared to La Liga's 3rd placed Atletico which earned ~42m euros only. And with the new premier league TV deal coming in from this year, expect the premier league figures to increase by as much as ~70%. The 20th ranked PL team will earn about ~70m euros from this year.

^^ Compare that to the 100+ M Euros that RM and Barca rake in every year from TV rights, you realize that the Spanish FA are absolute bulls**t.

These Spanish teams are trashed with talent. They're insanely talented teams that have been built with shoe string budgets. But no one outside of Spain realize that they're so talented. Why? Because these Spanish teams have no money to attract too many players from outside and compete with the world's best. RM and Barca excluded, nearly all other Spanish teams are heavily in debt, and use mostly local players. Still, using players from insanely small populations, they manage to go really far in European competitions.

To me it seems like that the next EPL season is going to be a badass season (with the likes of Mourinho, Pellegrini, Bale, RVP, Hazard, etc.), and the La Liga season absolutely terrible. Atletico almost managed to break the Madrid-Barca duopoly last season by coming 3rd with 76 points, but that won't be the case anymore. It'll be like those 30 point gaps again between 2nd and 3rd.

Yeah, it wil probably be like this:

1. Real/Barca = 96 pts

2. Real/Barca = 96 pts

3. ___\ = 75 pts

Don't forget also that release clauses have a LOT to do with this. When clubs as rich as Real and Barca (and City/Chelsea/PSG etc) can look across and know exactly how much to spend to poach players from the other La Liga teams, such teams have no option.

By contrast, look at the Bale saga. Of course I don't want it to happen, but if it does, it'll be for a price that Spurs want, not what some DoF in Madrid can research about his contract's release clause.

^ That's very true. +1

La Liga should just be Real and Barca playing each other all year long.. Team with most wins stays in La Liga and qualifies for CL. The other gets relagated to play with The other teams. The other teams make their own league, winner of this league get to play either Barca or Real all year long in "La Liga" and play in CL. That's the best solution for me.. ahaha

@Wolfie

No offense, but that post makes no sense whatsoever. Can you elaborate a bit? :/

It's a joke about La Liga being a two horse race and the the other teams should create their own league to escape it.

@Wolfie

OH. Lol sorry. I couldn't understand what you said at first.

It is a bit confusing now that I read it again.. lol

Dont forget that la liga has huge youth academies that fill up all holes, and the youth players often are of high quality..

besides, Betis has strengthened their team, Villarreal has strengthened, Atletico has strengthened, Even tough Atletico lost Falcao they have strengthened on many positions and got a good replacement for Falcao in Villa, the bottom team Granada has strengthened with players from french middle teams and talents from Udinese. We Valencia have lost 1 good player ok at an overprice, our 3rd best player, but it was the easiest to replace of our good players. with Banega out we would have been worse.

3-5 good players from La liga has been sent of to other leagues but do you talk about new players that come in like Bacca, Gameiro and soon We will spend on some good placers to replace soldado and Real Sociedad got 50 Mil to spend, and not to mention there are many many more good players from non Real and Barca, many that PL fans have never heard of.. look at Malaga last year in CL good quality of all players that were of high CL standard but not to many familiar names for PL fans.

besides the game is being played on the field otherwise we can look at which team has the best market value and no matches has to be played, many teams with players valued high have it tough, ex: City not doing good in CL, ex: Anzi, ex when my Valencia had our best team around 08 we where doing **** on the field. maybe 60 percent of what makes a great team is down to the playstyle tactics, coach and team spirit. Spain also got another culture, more domestic coaches than in PL.

coaches that tent to think more football

\"La Liga should just be Real and Barca playing each other all year long.. Team with most wins stays in La Liga and qualifies for CL. The other gets relagated to play with The other teams. The other teams make their own league, winner of this league get to play either Barca or Real all year long in \"La Liga\" and play in CL. That\'s the best solution for me.. ahaha\"

its idiotic comments like this we can do without.... People tend to be so ignorant on these posts..
With your logics the armenian league or something is the most even so that should be the best, These **** teams you speak of behind barca and real would compete in the top of every other league if they would play there..

At least I cant wait for new season of entertaining matches in (according to me and officially by UEFA) the world best league.

Lets not create a La Liga vs PL since we have already had 15+ pages of forum discussion of those, it resulted in nothing

^But you're forgetting it's extremely easy for EPL clubs to snatch youth players from La Liga clubs due to there being a salary cap for youth players. And it's going to keep happening too because the Spanish FA are not fixing the issues they have.

it should be a rule for that for the whole EU

back to the point this years la liga wont be worse, it will entertaining to follow, cant wait

It certainly will be entertaining for some, but we're not talking about how entertaining it is. The quality in La Liga teams have really went down and waiting for youth players to step up isn't the perfect example to use because once those youth products get big, either Barcelona or Madrid come calling or they're going to another league. As for the youth salary cap, I disagree with you. If one youth player is bigger than the rest of the academy, he should be getting paid much more than the others. It's either that or he moves to a team that offers more.

its clear you dont follow La Liga that much. Teams are better now than before, it is in recent years la liga has taken the first spot in the league ranking and many teams have great players that are very good with names not too familiar to the PL crowd

^^ It's clear that you don't follow the world of football that much.

Yes, clearly La Liga has gotten stronger, despite all of their best players either going to the Top 2, or abroad, and with the biggest non-Real, non-foreign transfer this ENTIRE window being Benat for, what was it, 8m euros?

So exciting. :p

You used to say how much you hate rankings, and now it's the only thing you have left to resort to. Shame that ranking is basically thanks to Barcelona. :)

@Knibis, you have too many flaws in your argument.

1) Yes, we might have fantastic youth academies, but as Ven pointed out, it's too easy for EPL teams to snatch up our talent.

2) The "3-5 good players" who left our league are Falcao, Soldado, Navas, Negredo, and Llorente. You're telling me that Gameiro can compare to Soldado? Villa at 32 to Falcao, who is one of the world's best? And who's going to replace Navas?
I'm sorry Knibis, but face it: La Liga teams have gotten WEAKER. Malaga may have put together a brilliant run which almost led them to the CL semis, but that was largely thanks to Willy, Isco, and Pellegrini. Of those three, only Willy remains at the club.
Valencia have lost Roberto Soldado, who was their captain and their major threat up front.
Atletico have lost Falcao, one of the world's best.
Sevilla have lost both Negredo and Navas.

So where is the competition for RM and FCB? I don't see any in the near future. Not unless the retarded Spanish FA take some action and help out these clubs.

3) What Wolfie said was a joke. Not really a suggestion. :P

But @Lodatz, I have to disagree with you here. La Liga's dominance in the rankings is largely thanks to 3 clubs. Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid. Barca have won the CL in '09 and '11, Atletico won the EL in '10 and '12, and Real have reached the semis of the CL 3 years in a row. Not to mention that the last 4 UEFA Super Cups have come to Spain.

I do agree that La Liga should be 2nd, with EPL as 1st, but the trophies is what puts them ahead in the rankings. TECHNICALLY, the EPL is a better league, but its the European trophies which Barcelona and Atletico won which bring home the rankings. But with that being said, I find the rankings to be complete bullsh*t.

"Barca have won the CL in '09 and '11, Atletico won the EL in '10 and '12,"

I amend my statement therefore to: Barcelona, and winning 2nd Tier competitions.

This does not change my perspective. ;)

@Lodatz

Oh, no doubt. I still agree that the rankings are crap and that the EPL should be rated higher than La Liga. Just wanted to point out Atleti's success. ;)

Even Madrid last season with Ronaldo y Mourinho ended up Fifteen, yes 15, points behind Barca. Barca without Puyol, without a coach, without Messi in the last 10 games!