No more Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos or Zinédine Zidane: the faces that have made La Liga for the past twenty years are no longer there for the new season which starts on Friday, between faltering economy and latent tensions.
To discover
Liga fixtures and results
Superstars gone, a Real Madrid and FC Barcelona still engaged in the European Super League project and ready to face, an economy heavily affected by the health crisis but an agreement fallen from the sky in sight with the CVC fund ... A what will this Liga 2021-2022 look like?
On the eve of the start of this new transfigured Spanish championship, certainties have given way to doubts.
On Thursday, the clubs gathered to endorse the decision of LaLiga, the body managing professional football in Spain, which has decided to sell 10% of its capital to the CVC Capital Partners investment fund for 2.7 billion euros.
Lionel Messi's first words at Paris Saint-Germain
Without stars, without money
A providential windfall, while the portfolios of the main La Liga clubs have been deeply affected by the consequences of the health crisis ...
But an agreement criticized by Real and Barça, who still hold on to their European Super League (with Juventus Turin), a project they presented as the miracle solution to a declining football economy.
On the eve of the start of the Championship, a handful of teams have still not registered their players to compete in the 2021-2022 season, experiencing great difficulties when it comes to aligning their payroll with financial fair play. demanded by LaLiga.
This week, tensions have increased: Florentino Perez, Real Madrid boss, first announced on Tuesday that his club would file a complaint against LaLiga and CVC, with the aim of convincing other clubs not to endorse the agreement .
Then on Wednesday, he spoke again to respond to the accusations of a former Barça leader, who accused him of having played a role in the departure of Lionel Messi from Barcelona.
This is also the main information from the start of the season in Spain: for the first time in 17 years, a La Liga will be played without the Argentine N.10, which marked Barça and all of Spain with its legendary imprint before flying to Paris on Tuesday.
His eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo had already left Real Madrid and Spain in 2017, casting a first cold on the hot Spanish league.
And this summer, several football superstars preceded the "
Pulga
" (chip, in Spanish), like Zinédine Zidane, who resigned from his position as coach of Real Madrid, or Sergio Ramos, ex- captain of the "
White House
" who also joined PSG.
Atlético dreams of a double
"
La Liga starts in the courts, and with fewer stars,
" the conservative ABC newspaper summed up on its headline Wednesday.
But even depopulated of its superstars, La Liga will remain one of the best championships in the world this season.
Defending champions Atlético Madrid signed the most expensive transfer of the summer to Spain, luring Argentina midfielder Udinese Rodrigo de Paul for five years in exchange for EUR 35m. and the upheavals in the workforce at its two main competitors have boosted its confidence to retain the crown.
Barça, for its part, will always be able to count on Antoine Griezmann and some reinforcements such as Sergio Agüero or the former Lyonnais Memphis Depay to supervise the promising generation of young talents from La Masia, the club's training center, led by the jewels Ansu Fati and Pedri.
And Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid, in full reconstruction after the departures of Zidane, Ramos and Raphaël Varane (to Manchester United), will rely on the experience of his only recruit, David Alaba, and on a new extraordinary season for Karim. Benzema, to hope to rise again on the Spanish throne, from which he was ejected with a breath last May.
