The La Liga began in 1929 with 10 teams. It was only in the 1997 season that 20 teams played in the league.
With almost 9 decades of experience, the league should have been competitive.Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case. I say this looking at the results for the past 15 years. The results show only Real Madrid and Barcelona as winners and runner ups.
Just imagine the plight of the league where 2 teams decide the fate of the title always. It’s not a good prospect for any player to join another team as the chances of winning reduce.
Yes, Valencia in 2003-04 and Atletico Madrid in 2013-14 did win the league but apart from that the remaining 13 seasons belonged to Barcelona and Real Madrid which brings us to question what is the league beyond these 2 powerhouses?
The answer to this is complicating. You can say money buys good players and hence the league can be won. But Atletico did it with pure talent and not money.
In addition, Barcelona Real Madrid rivalry and head to head is the most sought out match of the La Liga season. There are so much passion and aggression in these matches!
Also, passion for the game always brings out the best in any team. The classic example for this is Leicester City who won the EPL in 2015-16 which was their first time since their 132-year history.
Overall, there are just 3 teams who have been challenging for the top 4 finish like Valencia, Sevilla, and Villareal. If they get some good talent and experienced players, they can surely pull off the invincible. For now, their intent only lies in champions league qualification which is not good for the league’s survival.
The audience loves competition and the attendance will keep dropping if Madrid and Barcelona continue their streak. To conclude, the current La Liga is nothing beyond Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Are you wondering when is the Barcelona Real Madrid next match in the LA Liga?
Then there’s some bad news. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown impact, no football games will take place. Until the situation is contained, the best you can do is watch old Barcelona Real Madrid head to head games!
India loves sports. This is said considering the fact that everyone loves to play a certain sport. Until 2010, Cricket was the only sport which people liked, the government recognized and gave facilities to push kids into getting good athletes for the nation. Yes, our country is a cricket loving nation. For sure, we were an indestructible force in Hockey in the early thirties but due to ill facilities we could never up our game. Many would either choose cricket as a career or get into the corporate stream. Some dared to try other sports and excel. The reason people chose cricket was because of the exposure, money and competition. Also, other sports did not have much exposure or media attention.
All this changed in the past 5 years. Now apart from the Indian premier league we have;
IPTL (International Tennis Premier League) since 2014
There are many more leagues for Poker, Polo etc. The point I want to put through is due to all these leagues opening, our national players get exposure and get to share the field alongside players who are on top of the world rankings. The audience in India also have graced all these sports. Would you believe that over 20,000 people watch ISL live on the ground or that people now talk about Kabaddi more often than cricket. Leagues in India need to get more facilities so that home grown players get better in the game and can make our nation proud. Currently it’s a work in progress but within the next 5-7 years, there surely will be growth.
You might be guessing about teams with such a low performance level.
This one’s different.
This is the story of my college life.
There were some of us who shared the passion for football. We made a small team comprising of 6 guys. We weren’t the best. Hell, we weren’t even good. All we had was the love for the game.
We decided to play for rink football tournaments which are basically for 5-8 players and the ground size is lesser than half of the actual football ground. Now don’t think since the space is small that everyone can last the entire game time.
Wrong. Did you know that the pace of the game increases with the reduction of ground space? So smaller the ground, faster will be the game. We worked on our stamina to last an entire game. It was tough but over the course of a couple of months we could last an entire game. Then was the turn of the next hurdle I.e. coordination. I believe without coordination and team work, no team can succeed. So we found out our inner strengths, played along and in time, we had a good coordination level.
Over this period of understanding our strengths and weaknesses, we practiced after lectures, tried getting better with each training session and playing friendlies to find out how good did we fare in the game.
Now the results in the practice games sometimes don’t highlight everything. The nervousness, the fear is less when we play such matches. It gets a zillion times worse while we actually play.
We got the taste of that nervousness in our first match ever. It was for a team of 5 with 3 substitutes which can be used anytime in the game. We got scared. Not one pass was mad correctly. We lost 6-1. The goal which I scored was from a penalty. That was the only shot on goal. The most embarrassing part was the opposition had been playing in their jeans and we were decked up to play mainstream football. So many people watched our game, laughed on us. I still remember that day and laugh on it.
Over the course of 1.5 years, we kept going to tournaments in different colleges, only to lose in the first round. Sometimes we got humiliated, sometimes we humiliated ourselves with the performance. Once, we lost against a team who had one player lesser than us. That was the day our morale was tested. I had lost every bit of hope.
Then I faced my biggest challenge.
In our final year, we decided to play our last tournament. 2 teams from our batch also were participating there. They came up with a theory where they suggested that we make 2 good teams with awesome players and 1 weak team. In all honesty I’ve never felt that disgusted. How can you degrade someone by telling them they are weak? Winning is not everything. Sometimes even your efforts count. I remember one professor who called us losers because she knew we would keep losing. Over time, she respected us for never giving up. She was always our support and gave us permission for all such tournaments.
Anyways coming back to the situation, I was asked to play in the supposedly “strong team”. Now honestly, my loyalty was tested. I really wanted the taste of winning at least a match once before my college life was over. I could get it all if I would join the other team. I wanted to win, but not without my friends.
I chose my friends.
The others asked me to reconsider. But I had decided. Had it been 100 losses on the trot, I’d still be with them.
The tournament was nothing less than a fairy tale.
We not only won 1 match, but went on to the semis.
Yeah, semis!
Imagine the delight when we heard the final whistle which was rung for our victory.
We were overjoyed. We had done it.
On the course to the semis we defeated one of the “strong teams “on penalties.
Yes, we did. We of course lost the semis to the other strong team (who FYI were really good) but we earned some respect in the form of both the teams coming to us and telling how badly they had underestimated us. It feels really good when your opponents come ahead and praise your efforts.
All in all, that step I took helped me understand something really important.
When the going gets tough and you want to succeed, there will always be 2 paths i.e. an easy path and the actual path.
The easy path is like a joy ride which gets over soon. You don’t really earn it when you take the easy route.
The actual path is what we are supposed to do in that moment.
What we decide shapes our destiny.
When in doubt of myself, I always think of that day when I took that bold step which would lead to the greatest victory my team ever had.
And that’s one of the most prized moments of my life.
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