La Liga 25/26

Messi983 said:
Sociedad who are currently 8th on 44 points can still be relegated if they lose remaining three games (and since they play Girona, Valencia and Espanyol who all needs points even more desperately than them that's not unlikely) and other results also go against them. Probably very low chances for that to happen but mathematically it's still possible they'll play in the Europa League (as a CDR winner they have already guaranteed that) and Segunda next season.

Similar with Rayo who can also get relegated and play in the EL if they win the Conference league final.

It happened twice in the last three seasons that a team with 40 points (Leganes 2024/25 and Valladolid 2022/23) got relegated but this season is highly likely that two teams with 40 or more points will go down.

I've checked back and something similarly crazy than this year was going on in the 2010/11 season. Then Deportivo was relegated on 43 points (AFAIK that's a record) and 9th placed Osasuna finished with 47 points.


Points required since then to stay in La Liga (I've not looked into h2h comparision so just calculated one more point than 18th placed team).

2011/12 - 42
2012/13 - 37
2013/14 - 40
2014-15 - 35 (18th placed Eibar finished on 35 points alongside two other teams but ultimately Elche who finished 13th with 41 points were administratively relegated)
2015/16 - 39
2016/17 - 32
2017/18 - 30 (last three teams were really poor that season, 18th Deportivo finished on 29 points and then 17th Leganes had 43)
2018/19 - 38
2019/20 - 37
2020/21 - 35
2021/22 - 39
2022/23 - 41
2023/24 - 34 (again last two teams - Granada and Almeria - were bad and only had 21 points, 18th placed Cadiz finished on 33 and Rayo a place above them on 38)
2024/25 - 41
2025/26 - ? (should be 41 or 42 again)

So on average around 37 points were usually enough to stay up in last 15 seasons but over last 5 years (including this season) this has increased. One of the reasons for that is probably that both Barca and Real have declined over this period and smaller teams can easier get points off them than a decade ago. Another one is that teams like Valencia who used to be in European spots are now also down there in midtable or even fighting relegation almost every year. So while La Liga has declined quality wise it also became more unpredictable. But is this really what will keep Spanish clubs competitive against other top 5 leagues? They've long ago lost the step against EPL clubs but tbf so did other leagues except for certain clubs (PSG and Bayern who play in their own leagues in their countries).

Tebas can say his plan is working but instead of holding back the whole league with financial restrictions shouldn't he rather help clubs like Betis and Villarreal catching up the big 3 while those stay competitive against European elite clubs. Surely each club is the first one responsible for their own fate but league should also create environment for clubs to progress rather than most of them just scraping for money and selling key players every summer (usually also under their market price) just to survive.
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I feel that one of the problems are, once any Spanish club makes a meaningful step forward, they don't have the support from the league to be able to concretise their progress. With the fixed way the FFP model works, you have to become a big team and THEN you can spend, but how will you get there in the first place without some investments?

For example, Getafe had a good performance for many seasons, they qualified for Europe, they clearly took a step forward and became a club capable of getting the top6.

But despite the fact they showed they are ready to make progress and go up a level in quality, they had to continue selling their assets and best players, and probably after Bordalas leaves they will return to mediocrity or even risk relegation.

How do you expect them to grow their economic and commercial value if they can't hold onto their players? It takes time and patience for a football club to develop its revenue and power, but with the timescale LaLiga demands (you have to sell today to buy today) clubs will get rid of the reasons of their success before they've even started their project.

I think the attachment of 8th-18th place is for this reason, the FFP model sets a hard barrier on how much a team can realistically progress before it has to start selling its assets. Consider that most teams have to replace players every season, players get injured, players get older etc. So you end up with a lot of teams who are good institutions, they are well run, they have good managers, but they all hit a similar wall when trying to progress past mid table quality.

Everyone says it, but it's clear that many of the teams in this league would easily be CL quality if they could spend as Premier League teams do.
 
The teams are the ones that set the FFP rules and approve them.

They vote in Tebas to over see them rules being applied.

This idea that these are teams that are unlucky in comparison to EPL and being held back isnt accurate and many of the bigger teams were struggling before these rules also and getting themselves into situations where future of club at risk.

Ideally it would be a much smaller league with tv money spread over 10-12 teams and would help in Europe also.

But will never happen as too many teams with too much to lose would have to approve it.

La Liga cant compete with tv money of EPL across the board as just not as many teams folk care to watch on tv around the world.
 
You can't increase the revenue without increasing the quality first though, there has to be an initial investment before the product can grow in value.

LaLiga teams used to have problems with overspending and getting into financial trouble, but part of that was also that the league doesn't generate enough money outside of the top teams, so it's much easier to end up in trouble when you don't have a bedrock of very expensive TV rights, international fans etc. In those times, the TV rights were even smaller for the other teams than they are now (this is one reason why Tebas was elected initially for increasing the share of the smaller teams). And now, with the FFP rules as they are, its harder to attract quality takeovers.

For what is spent by those teams, the quality of football is what you'd expect or perhaps better. I mentioned Getafe because for some seasons now they are spending pretty much nothing and selling off their best players every season, despite overperforming. You cannot build value or grow that way.

Some teams in this league barely even have professional level facilities... I was at Vallecas a few times and have seen English League Two teams with better stadiums/shop/infrastructure etc (even the water doesn't work there sometimes. You can't even buy a shirt in their shop).

It's true that Rayo have had terrible leadership despite having squads and managers that consistently overperform, but even still, its a disgrace that a fairly decent team of LaLiga and representing it in Europe has the facilities of a Vanarama club.

Those clubs would be really attractive for takeovers, especially by state backed funds, but there surely will be limited interest in doing it in this league when the spending rules are the harshest amongst the top5 leagues. After Premier League teams, Ligue 1 and even Serie A are more interesting proposals.
 
A huge part of that is by design tbh.
It is like Bundesliga, who has the 50% +1 for fans ownership. When they can change it and attract massive investments in Europe biggest economy. But they want to have a level of protection of the clubs and fans.

In la liga, it is more of the Spanish identity, EPL barely have British owners, and most of them are minority owners. It is the opposite in La liga. They don't look at foreign investors favourably, and a lot of the rules are to discourage them.
 
Racing Santander is back in LaLiga after 14 years. (y)

And in a battle for second direct promotion spot Las Palmas turned the game around in Almeria with two goals in two minutes which gives Deportivo a chance to go three points ahead of Almeria (Depor is also better in h2h so would basically be a 4 points lead) with two rounds left if they win today against Andorra - game starts in 50 minutes.
 
We were cooking a Madrid team with modric, kroos, Ronaldo, benzema.

When we players like paco 😂.

Where did It all go wrong in the dark years

 
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Relegation battle seems to come down to Girona vs Elche game. Mallorca is almost relegated officially. Unless there is a combination of h2h among several teams where they come on top and it happens.
 
Khaled_a_d said:
Relegation battle seems to come down to Girona vs Elche game. Mallorca is almost relegated officially. Unless there is a combination of h2h among several teams where they come on top and it happens.
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They are tied with Osasuna in the H2H, but they have a goal difference that is 8 goals worse.

Levante has a better H2H, and Osasuna is better than Levante, but that doesn't matter because they are worse than both teams overall. Unfortunately they have no chance.
 
Jay-Jay said:
They are tied with Osasuna in the H2H, but they have a goal difference that is 8 goals worse.

Levante has a better H2H, and Osasuna is better than Levante, but that doesn't matter because they are worse than both teams overall. Unfortunately they have no chance.
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They would stay up in a three-way tie at 42 points between Mallorca, Elche and Osasuna so they need Girona and Getafe to win and Levante not to lose.
 
Dani Parejo and Alfonso Pedraza (he has already signed with Lazio) are leaving Villarreal.

Meanwhile Aspas has renewed with Celta until 2030. Next season will probably be his last one on the pitch and then he'll get another job in the club.
 
At the end RM finished with 86 points. In some seasons you win the league with that.

Again, this only speaks of how shit the league has been this season. These RM players have been doing more boxing than football and still got so many points.
 
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