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| Hernandez |
Bola2--There is much more to La Liga right now than meets the eye, and here to investigate with his ever first post for us is Samuel Hernández.
No, this article isn’t another one about La Liga being a dull two-horse race – it is a look beyond that. Barcelona and Real Madrid fight aside, the Spanish league has usually showed good games and nice battles between the teams of the so-called “the other league” in the recent years. However, in the last game week before the International break, after four 0-0 draws (reaching a total tally of 16 games without goals after only 11 league rounds), some sections of the Spanish media began to show their concern about the lack of goals scored this season. But let’s take a look at the numbers. Is the situation actually worrying?
The truth is that the number of goals scored has decreased in the last three years over a 10%. Stats are usually cold and need interpretation, but in this case they show why we, the fans, have the feeling that there has been a drop in the quality of the games this season. After all, football is about the goals. Last season, after 11 matches, the goals tally was that of 286. This season, after the same number of games played, we have 279. Almost the same amount, right? Well, the problem comes when we take a look at the number of goals scored by Barcelona and Real Madrid. Last season they scored together in the first 11 matches 53 goals (18.5% of the total), and this season 73 (26% of the total).
That leaves us with fewer goals scored between the smaller teams and a big quantity of games that end up goalless or with a 1-0 or 0-1. In fact, to find a season with so many 0-0s (16 this season) and 1-0s / 0-1s (25 this season) after 11 games, we have to go back to 2006, the times where defensive football, due to Greece and Italy’s success in the international scenario, was preferred over the current attacking football that most of the teams in La Liga try to implement. In the 2006-07 season, there were 12 goalless draws and 22 one-goal-to-nil wins at this stage of the year. That season, Fabio Capello’s Real Madrid triumphed over a Barcelona who choked in the last part of the league ending both teams tied with 76 points. A number of points that nowadays you expect those big two to reach by April.
It’s also worth-considering that Sevilla ended 3rd only 5 points behind them. In terms of competitiveness, that was a gem of a season, despite the average of goals per match at the end of the league being that of 2.48 goals. In any case, a tally similar to the ones in the Premier League (2.45) and the Serie A (2.55) that year. Now we’re back to those numbers. So far this season, the average of goals scored is 2.54, and if we don’t take into consideration the usual Barça and Madrid’s thrashings, we get a poor average of 2.19 goals scored in those games between the rest of the teams in the league. A number that would keep away any football fan from watching La Liga. Can we expect a significant rise from now on? Not really, if we look in the recent history.
Obviously, these alarming numbers are not a matter of coincidence. Almost all the teams in the league have financial troubles, some of them are in bankruptcy, and the quality of the players isn’t the same year after year. If we look at the last transfer market, many teams had to sell their best players, some of them solid goalscorers, in order to survive. Levante and Espanyol are the best examples, having to sell Felipe Caicedo and Daniel Osvaldo to balance the accounts. Bigger teams aren’t free of the financial crisis either. We all know how Valencia have systematically sold David Villa, David Silva and Juan Mata, or how Atlético Madrid, who brought names like Falcao, Arda Turan or Diego this season, first had to sell world-class players like David de Gea or Sergio Agüero, besides Diego Forlán. There are only two teams in the league that can clearly improve their squads season after season, while the rest accept their roles and try to get by after years of mismanagement. Of course, football, the game, suffers the consequences.
And where does this leave La Liga in terms of spectacle (i.e. goals) compared to the other top European leagues?
Season
|
Spain
|
England
|
Italy
|
Germany
|
France
|
| 2006-07 |
2,48
|
2,45
|
2,55
|
2,74
|
2,25
|
| 2007-08 |
2,69
|
2,64
|
2,55
|
2,81
|
2,28
|
| 2008-09 |
2,90
|
2,48
|
2,60
|
2,92
|
2,26
|
| 2009-10 |
2,71
|
2,77
|
2,61
|
2,83
|
2,41
|
| 2010-11 |
2,74
|
2,80
|
2,51
|
2,92
|
2,34
|
| 2011-12 |
2,54
|
2,99
|
2,44
|
2,91
|
2,58
|
La Liga is, along with Serie A, the only league which is suffering a significant drop in their average of goals scored per match in the last years. Recently, Spanish newspaper MARCA published a report about the crisis of Italian football, talking about low scores and low attendances. Spain isn’t far from that. However, as long as Barcelona and Real Madrid keep getting good results national and internationally, most of the people won’t be able to see the wood for the trees. Nowadays, watching a game of “the other league” in Spain is starting to become a pain more than a pleasure, with almost a 40% chance of possibilities that the match ends with only one goal scored or none at all. Spanish football is hugely affected by the financial crisis, and the game, progressively, too. Spanishfootball
progressively declined goals in La Liga matches
BalasHapusI believe La Liga will be growing longer in the arena Europe
BalasHapus