For a Real Madrid fan this has been a great season. 100 points, La Liga regained, Cristiano regaining respect and so many other things. Even for a Barcelona fan this is not a catastrophic season, even if they ended up being ‘trophyless’ and finished behind Los Blancos in La Liga.

La LigaIt might seem great when all the teams in world shudder and tremble at the prospect of meeting these two Spanish La Liga giants. Make no mistake, Real Madrid and Barcelona have laid down the gauntlet for the rest of the European clubs. In 90% of the cases, any superstar transfer target has an ambition to play for one of the two. They ride roughshod over any team and if they want their man, they get him irrespective of the stature of the club in question. Classic examples being Alonso, Ronaldo, Benzema, Villa, Mascherano and Fabregas who were cherry picked from United, Arsenal, Lyon and Liverpool and added to the sheen of La Liga.

Yet in their quest for world domination, Madrid and Barcelona have damaged La Liga irreparably. And this damage will continue till there is nothing left. The latest examples being the failed La Liga campaigns of Villarreal and Valencia.

VillarrealThere are several romantic stories in La Liga, but this is not one of them.

Villarreal were always supposed to be too good to go down from La Liga. After all they had Rossi, Nilmar, Senna and company. Despite losing Santi Cazorla to Malaga, they were never really regarded in any danger of going down. Sadly, Rossi missed the entire season due to injury and Nilmar failed to make any impact.

Villarreal lacked the cutting edge in front of the goal. The once proud team that scored goals for fun in La Liga was the 4th lowest scorer in the league with just 39 goals in 38 matches. They failed to win any of their last 6 matches picking just 3 points out of 18. They scored just 5 goals and the 3 losses were by 1 goal each in these 6 games. Their highest goal scorer was Marco Ruben with 9 goals and the only player who scored more than 5 goals.

With numbers like these Villarreal were always going to be in danger of going down. Yet, they could have easily saved themselves had they gotten themselves a half decent striker who could take 50 % of chances that were created. Yet they couldn’t, because they had no money.

Hamstrung by debts, running on shoestring budgets, delayed payments of salaries and exporting their players year on year to other clubs in premier league and big two, La Liga clubs are a sorry lot.

La Liga

Ironically, Villarreal is a club that plays by the rules. They don’t owe any money to the taxman and they don’t have any external debt so as to speak of. Atletico Madrid have debts running up to €350 m.

Villarreal were running on a budget of €70m last year. This is the state of a club which finished 4th in La Liga 2011 and reached Europa league semi-finals. Just imagine their budget if they were not in Europa League.

While the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao have huge lines of credit due to nationalistic identities, the other clubs have to survive like beggars on the leftover scraps of the big two.

Sevilla had to sell their crown jewels like Dani Alves, Sergio Ramos, Baptista, Keita and who knows who else. They somehow have managed to stay afloat. At one time Kanoute and Fabiano were a feared pair of strikers. With their powers waning there is no replacement and Sevilla might end up closer to relegation zone of La Liga next than anyone may imagine.

Villarreal had to sell Riquelme, Forlan and ultimately Cazorla. They couldn’t find a replacement for Senna. Eventually all things came together and Villarreal went down.

Villarreal

Imagine if they had a little bit of cash to throw about and if they could purchase a striker like Papis Cisse the way Newcastle could. How valuable those 5 extra goals in 4 games could have proved! Maybe the difference between La Liga and Liga Adelante. Or maybe a young loan signing like Canales or Wilshere who could have provided that spark of creativity so sorely lacking in the middle of the park.

ValenciaValencia officially became the ‘worst’ 3rdside in the history of La Liga. They had the lowest total for a third place finishing team. Yet, after selling Silva, Villa and Mata, it is incredible that they managed to finish above Malaga in Spanish La Liga.

Riddled with a mammoth debt due to their new stadium, unable to buy any decent players and offer adequate salaries, it is a credit to the team and manager that they still managed a very creditable Europa League campaign where they lost to the eventual winners Atletico  in the semifinals. Though they finished 3rd by margin, their La Liga campaign was not as bad as it seems to be.

ValenciaCan a manager or a team do anymore? Atletico and Bilbao had much more talented squads and/or bigger budgets at their disposal. Yet they finished much lower than Valencia for a very similar campaign in La Liga.

Valencia couldn’t afford to splash out €40m for a striker like Falcao who scored 30 odd goals in his debut season in La Liga for Atletico. Again this is the state of a club which has been regularly in Europe for the past several years and has regularly been in the top 5 of La Liga.

La Liga : Over and out?This year La Liga did well despite Real Madrid and Barcelona. Not because of them. Today, the German league has no value, in words of German champions Dortmund’s coach Jurgen Klopp. He feared losing Kagawa to United and eventually lost him. Just FYI, United were trophyless this season and Dortmund had just completed a historic double.

Soon, there will be no value for La Liga too. Because Bilbao and Atletico will lose their glamour stars too and further impoverish the league.

Silva, Mata, Villa, Baptista, Ramos, Alves, Keita, Riquelme, Forlan, Cazorla, Aguero. Soon they will be joined by Rossi, Nilmar, Borja Valero and Diego Lopez. From Bilbao, Javi Martinez, Iker Munian, Llorente and Ander Herrera might be lost.

Villarreal’s president Fernando Roig took Villarreal from nothing and turned them into a well-liked, top European club. Roig had earlier confirmed that Villarreal, even if they did retain their status as a La Liga club, would need to sell each summer to balance the books.

S. No.NameFromToCash Earned (in mil €)1

Sergio  AgueroAtleticoManchester City44

2

TorresAtleticoLiverpool                      25 + Garcia3

ForlanAtleticoInter5

4

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sorry this looks messed up, heres a link:
http://www.thehardtackle.com/2012/la-liga-killed-real-madrid-and-barcelona-how-they-doomed-villarreal-and-valencia/

Much of the malaise could be addressed with a collective TV rights agreement. However, one cannot expect Barca & Madrid to voluntarily agree to that because it would not be in their best personal interest to. It is the Liga's FA that has to force the issue but I feel they lack the spine to do it.  Lastly, with the PL's multi-billion pound TV deal, it is even more unlikely that the "big two" of Spain would want to weaken their competitive advantage.

barcelona won copa del rey, they were not no trophyless