RSSWill the Last One Out of La Liga Please Turn Out the Lights…
Torres and Fabregas lit up Spain’s Euro 2008 campaign
My friend John Carlin offers an interesting take on where the influx of foreign investment into the English Premiership leaves La Liga, the Spanish league long accustomed to being Europe’s finest. Not only are the cream of the world’s players increasingly likely to leave Spain (and Italy) for English clubs these days thanks to the billions pouring into the cofferes of Chelsea, Manchester City and a coterie of other clubs being snapped up as racehorses once would have been by the ultra-rich — Robinho’s move from Real Madrid to City may simply be the beginning; what with Kaka looking increasingly likely to join him there, or at Chelsea, and the likes of Jo and Elano already there, how long will it be before the bulk of the Brazilian national team are playing in England? Even more alarming, to some Spanish fans, will be the fact that the cream of the country’s coaches are increasingly being tempted to England, too: Rafa Benitez at Liverpool; Juande Ramos at Spurs; when West Ham and Newcastle sacked their coaches early in the new season, Spanish coaches were among the frontrunners for both positions. Only Valencia had more players in Spain’s victorious Euro 2008 squad than did Liverpool. Already, three of the most gifted members of that team — Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas and Xabi Alonso — are playing their club football in England; how long before David Villa, David Silvak, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Ramos join them?
As John puts it, the coming reality is one where “next to the Premier League, La Liga will dwindle to the level of, say, the Dutch League. Nice enough football, pretty to watch - and filled with clubs who have next to no chance of winning big European trophies, instead becoming feeder clubs for the English teams.”
Indeed, he points out, the swing of the pendulum of footie power to England may be best reflected by the fact that in Spain now, you can watch the English Premiership on TV, and you don’t even have to have cable; it’s on terrestrial TV!
I think John’s right, of course, but while the development may be traumatic for the fans of Real and Barca, I suspect for the rest — who often had to resign themselves to losing their best players to Real or Barca — making the switch to supporting a “Spanish” club in England won’t be that hard.
There is, after all, less and less that is particularly “English” about the football in the English Premier League. (Hell, even their national team is coached by a catenaccio artist from Italy). England is simply the address, and Spanish fans should take it as a compliment to their football that this huge influx of money that is creating what is essentially a league with a global audience is relying so heavily on Spanish talent and expertise.
The Latest
Guest Columns
How I Overcame My Jewish-Evangelical Upbringing and Learned to Love Christmas, Anyway
Guest Column: Gavin Evans Back in the day, when Gavin and I were young activists trying to change the world, the doorbell rang at our Observatory student house. I opened it to see a tall and handsome man in the silky purple shirt and dog collar of an Anglican Bishop. "You must be Tony," said Bis...Featured Analysis
Does Obama Have a Mideast Plan B?
It's hardly surprising that President Barack Obama chose to schedule a White House visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the dead of night on Monday, because right now Obama has little to show for his 10-month effort to revive a Middle East peace process. The Israeli leader's refu...Unholy War
Who Lost Fatah?
‘Who lost China?” was the battle cry of a witch-hunt conducted in the US State Department following the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communists. The department’s “China hands”, critics charged, had been woefully ignorant of the dynamics at work on the ground in China after the Second W...A Skeptical Read
More Iran Hysteria from the NY Times
The surest sign that another neocon bill of goods is being hawked in respect of the Iran "nuclear peril" is the revival of Rumsfeld-esque "unknowable unknowns", a la Iraq WMD panic circa late 2002. In the real world, of course, solid progress is being made towards a plausible diplomatic deal to ...99c Blogging
The 'Metrics' of Obama's Vietnam
Why is the Administration conducting a "test run" for its metrics of success in Afghanistan? Because the metrics used will be those that provide the desired verdictHear! Hear!
Helena Cobban Explains FatahIf I Was a Blogger...
More Dennis Ross Dissembling
Obama's Iran point man can't seem to get his head around the reasons for Israeli emigrationA Wondering Jew
Obama, Foxman and Israel's Purpose
Having spent decades drumming home the idea that Israel is rooted squarely in the Holocaust experience, and should be viewed by the world as the state of the survivors, Israelis and some of their most fervent backers in the U.S. are suddenly insisting that this is a misleading, even hostile idea.Glancing Headers
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...Annals of Globalization
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...The Whole World's Africa
Congo's Not Africa's WWI, It's Worse Than That
If there is a European analogy to be applied in the Congo, it would be the brutal Thirty Year War in Germany that ended in 1648Shameless Cronyism
Embedded with the Jihadis
My crazy friend Nir Rosen goes on embed with the Taliban, and finds out just why the U.S. can't win in AfghanistanRebellion Into Money
Why Joe Strummer Was a Socialist
Hint: It had nothing to do with bailing out banksCould Die Laughing
Whatever Became of that Nice Mr. Blair...
The problem with a global conversation between Muslims and Christians refereed by Tony Blair? Two words: Tony Blair.The 51st State
A Teachable Moment in Basra
It should come as no surprise that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's disastrous offensive against the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr in Basra has had the exact opposite effect of that intended -- strengthening rather than weakening Sadr, and making clear that he, and the Iranians, have far greater in...Futures Market
Will Russia Partition Kosovo?
Why my tea-leaf reading suggests that Moscow has a nasty surprise in store for Washington in the BalkansCuisine
Yummy yummy Umami
Why a leftover lamb bone turned a bean stew into an ecstatic eventHousekeeping
'Lost' Entries on Rootless Cosmopolitan
Previous entries that now register as "not available" are ones that got left behind in a server migration. We're working on retrieving themNew York Moments
The Debka Made ‘Em Do ItFrom Tony's Archive
A Playground Lesson for Bush
How a spontaneous alliance of jocks, do-gooders and lesser bullies against the biggest bully at the school changed the balance of power at Milnerton Primary
5 Responses to “Will the Last One Out of La Liga Please Turn Out the Lights…”
That’s not how I see it winding up Tony. I don’t think that the Italian, Spanish and German clubs will go quietly into the wilderness. When they’re faced with an existence like that of Ajax, Porto, Celtic & Lyon they’ll revolt. They will not accept being overachievers in underachieving leagues and will force UEFA into a continental European league. At present only the little countries suffer, when the big boys do too the change will come. And change for the better! The games-a-bogey when the biggest and most respected clubs in the game are being outspent by Manchester City, Hest Ham & Hull.
I guess I can see the Champion’s league being greatly expanded from its present format. Maybe it’ll become the Saturday league, and the domestic leagues will become the midweek game…
Would the Premiership consider taking Raymond Domenech? Please!!!!!!!!
I agree entirely. People don’t even realize the full extent of the gap between the Premier League and the rest. Heck, the Championship (England’s second tier) is Europe’s 5th biggest league.
It’s also worth remembering 6 of the last 8 semi-finalilsts in the CL were English, and last year, English teams were completely triumphant–they were only knocked out by each other.
What is happening is that all the domestic leagues of the world including Italy, Germany and Spain (and the Championship) have become merely local affairs viewed by the local supporters of the teams. The only competition viewed by international fans is the Premier League. The Global audience wants to see the best players, and they’re in England, so everyone watches England, giving the English much more money to then go out and buy even better players. It’s what’s called “the superstar effect” in economics. The best attracts the best and gets better. The rest stagnates.
Sure, people will still watch the occasional Barca-Real or Milan-Inter game, but no one will watch regular league matches from Spain or Italy but Spaniards and Italians. Can you imagine anyone sitting and watching Getafe-Zaragoza? Or even Barca-Getafe? Man City-Spurs, or Blackburn-Porstmouth, on the other hand, are global events viewed by millions from Shanghai to Santiago.
Great site and information - i recommend this site
Leave a Reply