In the morning light, August 14th, the new season of La Liga came as promised, the opening game was staged in Valencia's home field, with a narrow 1:0 advantage over Getafe. The next focus of the battle will undoubtedly be the debut of the La Liga duo Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Despite Barcelona losing Lionel Messi and Real Madrid yet to welcome back Mbappe, how will these two lost divisions from last season unfold in the new season?
On August 16th, Barcelona will face Real Sociedad at 2am. In the past, this time is not too early for fans, but since Messi left, the enthusiasm to stay up late to watch the game will be greatly reduced?
The loss of Lionel Messi has undoubtedly had a huge impact on Barcelona, with shirt and season ticket sales suffering. However, these are short-term effects, after all, these do not allow Barcelona to really earn much. In fact, if Messi was still around, Barcelona would have made a fortune, and how would they be saddled with billions of euros in debt?
Economic woes certainly exist, but on the competitive level, the first two seasons of Barcelona's performance is also quite bad, whether it is the four big blanks or La Liga and Champions League record is a record low for Messi's career in Barcelona. Although the new season may be more difficult, but I'm afraid it can not reach the point of the Champions League group stage on the exit, lose the Champions League qualification.
Real Sociedad is not an easy team to deal with, last season in the first half of the season once led the La Liga table, and finally due to the strength of the poor and regret not to reach the Champions League. In pre-season warm-ups, Barcelona won 5 and lost 1, including a 1:2 loss to Salzburg on the road, while the recent Gamba Cup was a 3:0 win over Crowe-led Juventus.
Real Sociedad has 4 wins and 2 losses in 6 matches against weaker opponents, and recently lost 1:3 at home to Osasuna, a mid-tier team in La Liga. In the last 10 meetings between the two sides, Barcelona has an absolute advantage with 8 wins and 2 draws. Last season in La Liga, Barcelona doubled Real Sociedad with 2:1 at home and 6:1 on the road.
Despite Messi's departure to Paris, Barcelona's mess is still in front of Laporta. A long list of players that need to be cleaned up and those that need to take a pay cut, with no development to speak of. Currently, Barcelona is stepping up its efforts to register two new recruits, Depay and Garcia.
Barcelona's forward line is full of problems, after Messi left, Aguero was injured, Depay is not yet registered, Fathi is not yet recovered from injury, Dembele and Coutinho's performance is disappointing, and the level of Griezmann and Bryce Witte is not outstanding. But in the absence of Messi, Coman has gradually adapted, this competition, we can still have confidence in the strength of the Barcelona far above the opponent, the home win is not much suspense, perhaps it will be a small victory.
The other battle in the spotlight will be on August 15 at 4am when Alaves take on Real Madrid. Last season, Real Madrid's four major failures, Zinedine Zidane resigned, and good old Carlo Ancelotti returned to Real Madrid. Ancelotti played for Real Madrid when Zidane was an assistant coach under him, and it hasn't been a smooth ride over the years.
Florentino promised a 300 million euro reinforcement budget when he welcomed back Zidane and delivered. After the return of Carlo Ancelotti, Real Madrid sold players to make money on the one hand, and there was no more dynamics in terms of reinforcements, except for the Bayern center back Alaba, who was waived in advance.
After losing 1:2 away to Rangers in the warm-up, Ancelotti said, "A striker has to be bought, if the budget is not enough, Richarlison will do." Florentino responded, "If you want to buy a striker, buy a fierce one, our target is Mbappe!" But there was no substantial progress on this matter, as Le Parisien reported that Real Madrid was ready to offer 120 million euros for Mbappe, and reporter Galletti later reported that Real Madrid would make a 150 million euro offer for Mbappe. But to complete the transfer deal this summer, the difficulty will not be smaller than before Chelsea introduced Harland, and now Manchester City introduced Kane.
When he was at AC Milan, Ancelotti was used to being diligent and using whatever players the boss gave him. Now at Real Madrid, it's the same. The new season is about to kick off, and Ancelotti said that Azhar, who has regained his health, is the best reinforcement for this season!
Alaves in the West basically is the level of relegation team, the team's total value is only 80 million euros, but not enough for Real Madrid to buy Azar that year. The two teams in the last 10 meetings, Real Madrid with 8 wins and 2 losses in the advantage, but last season did not get anything cheap, home 1:2 loss, away 4:1 win, each winning a game.
Ramos, Varane two main center backs left the team, replenished Alaba, the front line is not reinforced, the only can rely on only Benzema, and has been looking forward to not on the Azar is obviously not reliable. This competition, I favor the home team undefeated.
