Joga Europa: A New Season Begins – The State of Europe
With the end of August upon us, the new season of domestic soccer is in kicking off in Europe. Setting aside labor disputes in Spain, scandal in Turkey and riots in England, the continent’s best teams and leagues are back to fighting form. As always, the summer brought us dramatic domestic soccer storylines. One such being Cesc Fabregas’ “will he, won’t he?” storyline concerning his desire to move to Barcelona, which he eventually did.
Luckily, this summer contained a dramatic and highly entertaining Women’s World Cup as well as the Gold Cup, Copa Americana and other distractions. But we’re back in the thick of things. The fantasy leagues are starting up and we’re two weekends into the Premier League season and one weekend into La Liga (labor negotiations that delayed the season by one week.)
As always, the dominant teams look to be dominant as Manchester United has been steamrolling opponents like Tottenham and the aforementioned Arsenal; 3 – 0 and 8 – 2 respectively. In Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid look to maintain La Liga domination with impressive performances in their respective openers.
Of course, the beginning of the season also brings the myriad of minor trophies in the domestic leagues such as the FA Community Shield and the Carling Cup in England and the Spanish Super Cup. These smaller competitions are usually played between the top two teams from the previous year (as is the case with Spain) or the winners of other competitions like the FA Cup and the Domestic League in England. This year’s Community Shield saw the start of a vigorous rivalry between Manchester United and Manchester City, both clubs poised to compete, in contrast to years past. In Spain, no points for guessing who competed as Real Madrid and Barcelona met for a fierce two-legged competition which saw on –field fights and inter-coach altercations, par for the course, really.
However, most of these competitions served as glorified friendlies, allowing the popular teams to field and test their first and strongest teams against other stiff competition for a final time before the season began. These competitions are necessary when taking into consideration the ceaseless movements of players between clubs and continents throughout the summer and at the beginning of the season.
Though the transfers are too numerous to examine in detail, let us look at the few big name moves that have occurred in the off season. In England, Premier League champions Manchester United expanded their team with the addition of the highly favored Ashley Young from Aston Villa who has already scored for his new team. They also picked up hyped but young goalkeeper David De Gea from Atletico Madrid. The other Manchester club brought in a few big name players with their seemingly endless supply of money with the transfer of Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid and Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy from Arsenal. Meanwhile, they lost both Emmanuel Adebayor and Jo. Chelsea made some moves for young striker Romelu Lukaku and midfielder Juan Mata from Valencia. The most captivating (read: boring) transfer saga came from Arsenal and Barcelona as Cesc Fabregas’ multi-year desire to move back to his youth club finally came true. This occurred along side Arsenal’s unloading of Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Eboue and the loan moves of various players. Having made no major purchases besides Gervinho from Lille, Arsenal fans are left wondering whether their team will have any strength this season. Their recent embarrassing defeat at the hands of Manchester United seems to suggest otherwise.
In Spain, the big name moves are few, but still exciting. Barcelona made its two major acquisitions of Cesc Fabregas and forward Alexis Sanchez from Udinese. Atletico Madrid acquired Turkish midfielder Arda Turan while unloading David De Gea and Tomas Ujfalusi. Real Madrid made comparatively few changes, but picked up Turkish midfielder Hamit Altintop from Bayern Munich and the favored Turkish and German player Nuri Sahin from Borussia Dortmund. They also sold off Ezequiel Garay and Pablo Sarabia.
With the transfer window closing in for domestic leagues, other last minute moves are sure to follow. One thing that’s certain is that many teams have prepared themselves for another exciting season of Club football in both domestic and international in Europe. With the start of domestic seasons and the first rounds of the Champions League and Europa League already underway, stay tuned for more coverage from Joga Europa.
Erdi Erdem is the writer of Joga Europa, a column dedicated to European and occasionally international soccer. It will look at all the ins and outs of various national teams and domestic leagues while showcasing some of the brightest current and future stars of the game. The writer will use both the words football and soccer, often using both in the same sentence. Contact him by email at milleniacinder@gmail.comor on Twitter at @milleniacinder. This author also accepts face to face shout outs and copious responses.
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