2011-12 La Liga: Real Madrid Wins

[Foye]

Yeah Vallecano has actually been a decent team this year, but man were they horrible against Barcelona. Guess Barcelona took their anger out on them lol

Scary to think what might have happened if Barca had played with their A team.

[_SRV_]

The first good Pedro game since he came back from injury, with fully healthy Villa and Pedro, all Barcelona need for next season is an Abidal replacement and left wing defender. although I'm sure they'll go out and buy a scorer just for the sake of making signing noise, same goes with Real.
On the other hand European football is becoming like the NBA, too many games played and players are team with fragile players like Barcelona gets hurt too much.

[Foye]

The first good Pedro game since he came back from injury, with fully healthy Villa and Pedro, all Barcelona need for next season is an Abidal replacement and left wing defender. although I'm sure they'll go out and buy a scorer just for the sake of making signing noise, same goes with Real.
On the other hand European football is becoming like the NBA, too many games played and players are team with fragile players like Barcelona gets hurt too much.

Huh? I don't think they play too many games tbh. A good team should have 5 or 6 quality backups that regularly get playing time so that the starting XI can get a rest in easier games.

The amount of irrelevant national team friendlies is terrible, though.

[_SRV_]

Combine local league, with local cup, champions league, for British team there;s another cup, national teams, and you get a lot of games.
Real Madrid and Barcelona have played 2 games a week almost at regular basis this year. Barcelona had Chelsea/Real/Chelsea over 7 days period, Real had Bayern/Barca/Bayern also. ManU had to ditch the national cup early to reduce the game load, etc...

[5DOM]

Chelsea's been the same, but I think it actually helped us because everyone's trying their best to impress. With Barca, there's a bit less competition within the squad because their first teams just too good

[Foye]

Combine local league, with local cup, champions league, for British team there;s another cup, national teams, and you get a lot of games.
Real Madrid and Barcelona have played 2 games a week almost at regular basis this year. Barcelona had Chelsea/Real/Chelsea over 7 days period, Real had Bayern/Barca/Bayern also. ManU had to ditch the national cup early to reduce the game load, etc...

So what? Real Madrid has 21 field players on their roster. Every single one of those is a quality player that is at least good enough to play in domestic cup and league. Even if they have 5 injured players there are still always 6 guys available that can be rotated into the XI for easier games. Same applies for almost any big name team.

Real Madrid/Barca/Chelsea/ManU/ManCity. Their benches are deep as f***. You could probably field a Europa League team in their domestic league by just using their subs. They should be able to handle the amount of games easily.

It is a problem for teams that don't have such a deep bench (like Bayern Munich) but that's more of a management problem. If you want be competitve in all competitions you need to have a deep bench. If you haven't got a deep bench then = management fail.

As for FA and Carling Cup. Yes, that is stupid but that's a problem for EPL teams not European teams.

Chelsea's been the same, but I think it actually helped us because everyone's trying their best to impress. With Barca, there's a bit less competition within the squad because their first teams just too good

Barca have used their subs a lot this season. Don't think their players are overplayed.
Nobody is forcing Pep to always play Messi either. They have enough quality to leave him out in a few games.

[_SRV_]

Barcelona have 3 natural strikers, Villa, Pedro and Sanches, all 3 of them missed many games due to injury, and Pedro just started playing like a normal player, after the season is over. They have 3 back defenders, which means if one is injured/carded you're out of quality subs.
Quenca and Tello have played a lot this season, both are back up calls from the second team due to injuries.

Manchester united had to call up Scholes from the elderly home, and keep playing 50 years old Giggs, is this what you call deep?

[5DOM]

Real wins La Liga

[USA]

As much as I hate Mourinho and Madrid, it was a well deserved and earned title.

[_SRV_]

Their attack is simply amazing , ultra quick and ultra efficient, Mourinho was able to remove the loser tag from this team, and this time he did it with style.

[5DOM]

Mourinho, loser tag? what?

[_SRV_]

The loser tag was on Real not Mourinho. 5-0, 6-2, losing to Lyon in CL...

[5DOM]

oh, of course. stupid me

[J-Mezzy]

Yes Mou has given Madrid that big game toughness that they seriously lacked.

[_SRV_]

Messi scores his 50th goal in the league, unless something really extreme happens, he'll finish as the leading scorer.
The roles of last year were switched, Real won the cup, Ronaldo the leading scorer and Barca the league, this year it's on the way of Barca cup, Messi leading scorer, and real champions.
Messi has the chance to finish the season with more goals than 17 La Liga teams, the gap in Spain is ridiculous.

[Man of Steel]

Messi scores his 50th goal in the league, unless something really extreme happens, he'll finish as the leading scorer.
The roles of last year were switched, Real won the cup, Ronaldo the leading scorer and Barca the league, this year it's on the way of Barca cup, Messi leading scorer, and real champions.
Messi has the chance to finish the season with more goals than 17 La Liga teams, the gap in Spain is ridiculous.

The competition between Ronaldo and Messi has been the fire under their respective arses that has driven them to break the goal-scoring records. I don't think this 50 league goal record will ever be broken.

[5DOM]

Villareal have gone down. Not sure what this means for Rossi when he comes back from his injury

[Batu7]

Villareal have gone down. Not sure what this means for Rossi when he comes back from his injury

I wonder if he'll ever completely recover from that injury. But he's not staying in Liga Adelante. My guess is he will be sold by a discount.(of the reported 30 M price last summer)

[Curtis Lemansky]