Are Real and Barca killing Spanish football?

Posted Wednesday, August 31, 2011 by Supersport.com

With Real and Barcelona reducing the league to a two-team race and a bunch of also-rans, they are slowly killing the Spanish game to the point that fans will stop watching.

Anybody expecting anything other than a two-horse race in La Liga this season would have been swiftly deflated after the first round of fixtures. Real Madrid's trip to Zaragoza was destined to have just one outcome, and only the heroic performance of goalkeeper Roberto prevented Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates from getting into double figures.

Villarreal's 5-0 capitulation at Camp Nou was more indicative of a general malaise among the division's middle class and opens up the question not of whether any side can stop the big two, but if Real Madrid and Barcelona are already on course to smash all current records. The 107 goals in a season set under John Toshack in 1989-90 is surely under threat when 6-0 batterings are likely to be the norm. Both Barca and Real could realistically achieve the 100-point mark this year given the dearth of genuine resistance facing them.

Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido put it succinctly when he told the media, "It's a league which only two teams can win … it's third-world."

But the other teams have more to worry about than whether Real or Barca will win the league. No fewer than 12 sides will battle relegation this season. Sevilla, Valencia, Villarreal, Athletic and Atletico will contest the European spots. Malaga will likely do neither, for this season at least. Last term, Barca scored 95 in winning the league, Real bagged 102. At the current rate of scoring, Barca will need 19 games to match last season's haul, Real a mere 17.

Both sides managed to bang six, seven or eight past an opponent last season on various occasions, and this year the traditional also-rans will lag even further behind. Villarreal, Valencia, Atletico and Sevilla all lined up this past weekend without shirt sponsors as investment on almost every level abandoned La Liga en masse. So impoverished are clubs that radio broadcasters were barred from stadiums over the weekend because of a fee dispute -- the league wants them to pay, the stations do not. Real's match against Zaragoza was almost pulled from television after a disagreement between the club and Mediapro, the company that owns broadcast rights to Liga matches, over an unpaid debt. Zaragoza is 130 million euros in the hole and in the hands of administrators.

In La Liga in 2011-12, every penny counts.

This is why few clubs can expect to avoid an embarrassment when they face Real and Barca, let alone compete over the course of a season. Valencia finished in third last year, 21 points behind Real. That gap will be considerably wider this year, with Los Che weakened by the loss of Juan Mata, Isco and Joaquin Sanchez. Atletico is an unknown quantity: more will be discernable when marquee signing Radamel Falcao is cleared to play and Arda Turan has found his feet in Spain, but it promises to be a season of transition for the Rojiblancos. Villarreal proved on Monday that it will miss the incisive Santi Cazorla -- and that it needs a new defense -- and Sevilla has been wobbling for a couple of seasons. That Roberto Soldado and Alvaro Negredo, saviors of Valencia and Sevilla respectively this past weekend, are Real cast-offs speaks volumes about the balance of power in La Liga.