Posts Tagged ‘Liga 97’

The return of Florentino Perez as chairman of Real Madrid sees the policy of signing big-name stars – or galacticos – back at the Bernabeu as Los Blancos look to challenge Barcelona in the La Liga and on the European stage. Last season was Barcelona’s most successful in a long time a Josep Guardiola – in his first year as manager – led the Catalan spearheaded by Lionel Messi to success in La Liga, the Champions League and the Spanish domestic cup – the first time a Spanish club has won those three trophies in one year. Perez has signaled his intent to challenge Barcelona early on by breaking the world record transfer fee twice. First, the Brazilian Kaka was signed from AC Milan for £56million before Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo was bought for £80m. This mirrors Real Madrid’s transfer activity when Perez first took over the club in 2000, when he signed Luis Figo for a then record fee of £37m before breaking that record the following year when he purchased Zinedine Zidane from Juventus for £46m. As well as Kaka and Ronaldo, Real Madrid has confirmed the signing of Raul Albiol, the Valencia centre back. In his previous tenure, Perez was criticised for his buying policy as he tended to focus on attacking players too heavily and, indeed, the sale of defensive midfielder Claude Makelele to Chelsea is seen by many to be the downfall of Real Madrid after a promising start to Perez’s presidency. The 2008-09 season saw Barcelona lauded for playing attractive, attacking football and as well as winning a historic treble, the club beat fierce rivals Real Madrid 2-6 in the El Clasico derby – this is the most goals scored by Barca in this fixture and the biggest win since the 1970s when Johan Cruyff led Barcelona to a 0-5 win. Before the start of the season, a motion of no confident was raised club president Joan Laporta who narrowly survived the attempt to oust him. Spurred into action, he made major changes to the playing staff and brought in former player Guardiola to take charge of them. This brought great success to the club and many eyes are looking to the Catalan club to see what their next move is. By the end of June, they had yet to make any additions to their squad although journalists had written about many players taking Barcelona flights to join the Spanish and European champions as they look to fend off a new challenge from Real Madrid.

The Sporting Index traders have priced up the outright Champions League win index and have installed the two big Spanish sides as the favourites. The current champions, Barcelona, did spread bettors a big favour last season, comfortably winning La Liga, as well as producing an assured performance to beat Man United in the final in Rome. Their spread, before a ball has been kicked, is set at 42-45 (100 points for the winner, 75 for runner-up, 50 for losing semi-finalist, 25 for losing quarter-finalist and 10 for last 16) and they will be many people’s idea of the winner again this time around. However, their arch rivals Real Madrid will also carry a lot of spread bettors’ cash after getting through a shed-load of the stuff themselves this summer to bring in the likes of Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema and Alonso. Manuel Pelligrini’s side are next best in the index with a 38-41 point spread, but the problem for those who fancy either of these sides on the spreads is that no individual country has won back-to-back competitions for 20 years. Milan were the last club (and Italy the last country) to win it two years in a row back in 1990, so spread sellers of the big Spanish two have some reason for optimism.

Cristiano Ronaldo is likely to have a big bearing on Real Madrid’s European ambitions and those punters following Madrid on the spreads will be hoping the Portuguese winger can give Los Blancos their 10th European Cup success. If they do make it to the final, it is more than likely that they will face an English side – possibly his old club Man United. Following a break of five years without an English side contesting the final after United won it in 1999, one or more of Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool or United have been involved in the last five. Madrid, on the other hand, have had a very disappointing recent record in Europe’s most important competition, failing to make it to the final since they last won it courtesy of Zidane’s wonder strike in 2002. Spread bettors following them will have to take a huge leap of faith that the new Galacticos can prove themselves up to the mark.

Although England are the equal second most successful nation in the competition, patriotic spread punters will be aware that all of the last four runners-up have been from Blighty. That isn’t too bad though for those buying them on the outright win index and the Sporting Index market makers make the next four in the list England’s very own Big Four. Chelsea, although never having won the competition, are joint second favourites with a 38-41 point spread, Man United are next best at 34-37, with Arsenal 30-33 and Liverpool 29-32. Spread bettors are normally far too sensible to follow random patterns, but in the last five years, the winners have been from: England, Spain, Italy, England, Spain… If the pattern is to continue, Inter Milan are the most likely Italian team to lift the prize and their spread has been set at 25-28.