La Liga Thread

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6 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

Barca destroyed Madrid in El Classico. I think domestic treble this season. Plus Europe League. 

Real has a lot of dregs still and is also ageing in many places, so it is hardly shocking that they will all out (now or eventually) for monster players like Bellingham, Gvardiol, Mbappe, Håland, Enzo, Musiala, Alphonso Davies, Reece, Hakimi (if they cannot get Reece), Osimhen (if they pass on Håland) etc etc

here are their best players (and look at some of the ages), the ones who are good enough

none of their fullbacks are good enough, and if you take away the 3 oldsters, they have no CF and almost no almost no depth anywhere 

they only have 11 outfield players who are truly good enough, take away the 3 oldies, and they have 8

Thibaut Courtois 
Andriy Lunin (decent backup keeper) 
Éder Militão 
David Alaba (31yo this summer)
Antonio Rüdiger (30yo in a month and a half)
Aurélien Tchouameni 
Federico Valverde  
Eduardo Camavinga 
Toni Kroos  (34yo in middle of nest season)
Luka Modric  (38yo at start of next season)
Vinicius Junior 
Rodrygo 
Karim Benzema (36yo in the middle of next season)

Endrick (but doesn't come until summer 2024)

 

and the ones who simply are not good enough:

Nacho Fernández (and is 33yo tomorrow) dregs
Jesús Vallejo dregs
Ferland Mendy has been poor
Daniel Carvajal (32 next  season) in systemic decline
Álvaro Odriozola dregs
Dani Ceballos  dregs
Eden Hazard (and is 33yo in middle of next season) so poor now, it is sad
Marco Asensio has been poor for ages, his career never took off like it looked it would
Lucas Vázquez (32yo this summer) not dregs but hardly good enough
Mariano Díaz dregs

Reinier (on loan and injured again) has been a 30m euro bust since they bought him 3 years ago in Jan 2020

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REAL MADRID vs BARCELONA 4K | SPANISH SUPERCUP🏆 HIGHLIGHTS HD

 

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Barca won nil 1 v Real at Real in the Copa

and they did it without 5 of their main players, including their best 2

Robert Lewandowski
Pedri
Ousmane Dembélé  
Andreas Christensen
Jordi Alba 
 

Ronald Araújo was superb,

he completely shut down Vini Jr all night long, he is getting close to being the best CB on the planet IMHO

so were de Jong, Kessie, and ter Stegen

even Alonso was great on defence (he stayed back and did not bomb forward at all)

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Barcelona’s €200m problem: Gavi’s contract, La Liga conflict and a damaged brand

https://theathletic.com/4308500/2023/03/15/barcelona-la-liga-conflict-gavi/

When they set out their financial budget for this season, Barcelona counted on reaching the Champions League quarter-finals at least.

After they were knocked out of the group stage in the autumn, it left the club looking at a €20.2m (£17.8m; $21.7m) shortfall in expected revenue, so a new target was set: reaching the Europa League final would bring in roughly the same figure.

Again, things did not go to plan. Elimination by Manchester United in the knockout round play-offs meant Barca earned just €500,000 from the competition. And unfortunately for them, that’s not where their financial worries end.

In February, once the transfer window closed, La Liga published its latest round of salary limits that each member club must meet. These are calculated according to a club’s revenue and operating costs.

Despite the January sale of Memphis Depay to Atletico Madrid and Gerard Pique’s November decision to retire, the amount Barcelona are allowed to spend on salaries actually went down to €648m, from €656m last summer.

La Liga’s next calculations will come at the end of the season, and Barca are already braced for an even bigger drop.

Club sources, who preferred to speak to The Athletic anonymously to protect their positions, estimate they will be allowed to spend between €450m and €500m on wages. This is why La Liga president Javier Tebas has been repeating his message that Barcelona need to lower their expenditure on wages by about €200m.

And of course, now the club are having to respond to this amid the fallout following the news that Spanish public prosecutors have filed charges accusing the club of corruption over payments made to a former referee’s committee vice president.

So there’s a lot to get through. Here’s the latest picture.

No more levers?

At the end of last season, Barca found themselves in a similar situation. They were €144m over La Liga’s salary limit and had to either lower the amount of money they spent on wages or quickly increase their revenue. They chose the latter, conducting a dramatic series of asset sales that came to be known as ‘pulling levers’.

This included Barca selling a 25 per cent share of their TV rights for the next 25 years and a 49 per cent share of Barca Studios, its multimedia content arm. The sales were divided into four operations, with separate buyers.

GO DEEPER

Barcelona charged with corruption over payments to former referees chief

The €737.5m raised solved the problem and even financed a €140m spend on new players. Raphinha arrived from Leeds United, Robert Lewandowski signed from Bayern Munich and centre-back Jules Kounde joined from Sevilla. Barca also picked up Andreas Christensen and Franck Kessie from Chelsea and AC Milan on free transfers.

But since then, La Liga has changed the rules. Pulling further financial levers is no longer as attractive an option.

Regulations introduced in December mean the impact of any such asset sale on salary limits is now restricted. Regardless of true value, when it comes to calculating salary limits, anything over five per cent of a club’s total income will not count. In practical terms, it kills any prospect of a club raising a transformative amount of money, like Barcelona did last summer.

However, the rule does not apply to any club departments that do not report profits or any new business branches that still don’t produce money for a club. This is an interesting detail to note in the context of Barcelona’s official TV channel, Barca TV, which runs at a deficit. Last January, local radio station SER Catalunya reported the club could be considering its sale as it could provide a “lever effect” in the numbers.

However, senior club sources, who also wished to remain anonymous, were adamant this was not an option being considered.

These same sources describe instead how Barca are planning to “increase income from marketing and sponsorship deals, matchday revenue and the club’s museum”, while also “trying to reduce expenditure as much as we can”.

Speaking in February, they said that they are already expecting the club’s commercial department to report higher revenues than were forecast last summer, with more than €210m expected to come through sponsorship deals. They had budgeted €189m.

But now that picture is more complicated. There has to be a question mark over the potential attractiveness of Barca’s brand given the latest scandal to break at the club, with Spanish public prosecutors filing corruption charges over payments made to former referees’ official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.

President Joan Laporta hinted at another option in an interview last year: the possibility of playing a series of sponsored friendly games abroad over the summer.

“It might happen that we play one or two friendlies before June 30,” Laporta said. “We are getting a lot of proposals because Barcelona has recovered its pedigree, from an institutional and sporting point of view. It means there are a lot of investors considering this.”

What about player sales?

Last summer, Barca raised a lot of money through financial levers but there was also a big clear-out of unwanted players, both through sales and loan deals.

This year, there will not be so many sales. In February, The Athletic went through the Barca squad to provide detailed updates on each player’s situation. Barca might consider selling Ansu Fati and Franck Kessie but are a long way from anything being decided yet.

GO DEEPER

Barcelona squad state of play: Who will stay and who will go this summer?

In terms of expected arrivals, Barca are again keeping an eye on transfer targets whose contracts are expiring. That’s all they can really afford to do, especially as some of last year’s signings, including 34-year-old Lewandowski, agreed deals that would provide them with a salary increase before the start of 2023-24.

Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan could be an option, although nothing has been agreed. Inigo Martinez will also be available on a free transfer this summer and Barca have been looking at the Athletic Bilbao defender.

Laporta knows they will not be able to afford many big names this summer, and the emergence of Alejandro Balde and Gavi has shown what the academy can offer. Faith in La Masia, Barca’s famous youth system, is what club sources are stressing.

And there is conflict to come

There is another X-factor at play here: the tense relationship between Barca and La Liga, which is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the recent drama over the status of star 18-year-old Gavi.

The midfielder’s situation is a complex one.

When Gavi signed a contract extension in September until 2026, he was still registered as an academy player. The new deal included a clause that would allow him to leave as a free agent if Barca had not registered him as a first-team player by June 30, 2023.

GO DEEPER

Barca risked losing Gavi for nothing. So they acted fast — and in secret

Barca could only change his status to that of a first-team player during a transfer window. By late January, they had not managed to do so, with La Liga stating it could not be done as Barca were in breach of their salary limit rules.

Just before the end of the window, Barca decided to seek a legal ruling, acting without La Liga’s knowledge, to try and force the competition body to register him as a first-team player.

According to court documents, when presenting their case, Barca claimed La Liga’s decision to reject Gavi’s registration was part of “a harassment campaign” against the club.

Barca were successful in their legal bid. On the very last day of the window, January 31, a Barcelona court ordered a temporary injunction that forced La Liga to register Gavi as a first-team player, while also giving the club 20 working days to file a separate case, through which a permanent resolution over the player’s status would be reached.

Barcelona filed this on March 2. La Liga then challenged their submission, claiming they had missed the deadline by a day.

On Monday, in a document addressed to both parties and seen by The Athletic, the court confirmed in La Liga’s favour, stating Barcelona did indeed file their documents after the deadline. But the court has given Barca five days to respond before making a final decision on whether Gavi’s registration should revert to its previous status — that of an academy player.

If this were to happen, that clause agreed in September, allowing him to leave for nothing this summer, would come back into effect.

Laporta and La Liga president Javier Tebas have also clashed over the recent corruption charges brought against Barca.

Before those charges were made official, Tebas said: “If he [Laporta] does not justify properly or in a more reasonable way what has occurred, I believe he should resign.”

Laporta used an institutional event at the club to hit back a few days later.

“We had been advised that Tebas was promoting a campaign against Barcelona and myself as a president,” he said. “Now he’s shown his true colours. He is obsessed with Barca and has some sort of phobia with our club.

“He can’t forgive us for rejecting his CVC deal. He can’t deal either with the fact we are backing the Super League. His aim is to control Barcelona from a distance, but he can’t do that with me in charge.”

So everybody should be braced for more conflict. When it comes to the salary limit, Barca feel they are being treated unfairly, while La Liga question whether the club understands the financial rules.

[Vesper 27,378]

2022-23 LaLiga

Barcelona          
Real Madrid      

https://www.sportfacts.net/sports/2023/la-liga-barcelona-vs-real-madrid-s1/

https://www.vipleague.st/barcelona-vs-real-madrid-1-live-streaming

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nil 1 Real

Vini off a deflection

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1 1

[Blue Armour 4,168]

Madrid lose to Barca. Is this the same team that blitzed Liverpool at Anfield?

Honestly think that if out defense doesn't goof up or suffer injuries, we'll be fine against the lot from Madrid.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Blue Armour

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 21:00 - 22:45 | CET

LA LIGA | BARCELONA VS REAL SOCIEDAD – S3

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Bаrсеlоnа vs Rеаl Mаdrіd

29 July 2023 at 22:00.

https://www.sportshub.to/sports/2023/friendly-real-madrid-vs-barcelona-s1/

 

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[Vesper 27,378]

 

Dembele scored

1 nil Barca

then

Ronald Araújo with another pen (2 in 2 games) but Vini Jr missed the pen

Edited July 29, 2023 by Vesper

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Vini hit the bar again (this time in open play)

Bellingham is such a beast

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what a save by Cuntois

and now a fight

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this is so not a preseason level game

this is like old school El Classico hate

[Gundalf 728]

They love doing this crossbar challenge.

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and he had insane assist a few minutes later

Fermín López

might want to remember that name

Edited July 29, 2023 by Vesper

[NikkiCFC 7,601]

Jude great debut last night but crazy that they had 2 ACL in a week. Now Militao as well.