The new season of Spain’s top professional soccer league, known as La Liga is just around the corner as the 2019/20 season will begin on the 16th of August, 2019. This will be the 89th season since the establishment of La Liga and FC Barcelona, the current title-holder will start the season against Athletico Bilbao. Rayo Vallecano, Huesca, and Girona will not be part of this season as they were relegated at the end of last season. Osasuna, Granada, and Mallorca are the three clubs that will replace them this season after they earned promotion from the Segunda Division last season.
La Liga has been at the top of the UEFA’s league ranking for the last five seasons and it makes winning the league very prestigious. FC Barcelona is the frontrunners to win the league again for the 2019/20 season as their performance in the league has been absolutely fantastic and consistent over the last decade. They have won eight out of the last eleven league seasons and are the defending champions as well.
Barcelona won the league for the 26th time last season in their history but are still behind their all-time rival Real Madrid in the race of highest leagues won in history. They will surely look forward to minimizing the gap once again. Lionel Messi, the captain and all-time highest top scorer of Barcelona and La Liga, has already announced that they will look forward to retaining the title again in the 2019/20 season. Barcelona won the league quite comfortably last season but this season the competition is surely going to be a lot tougher after the two Madrid clubs went big on transfers this summer.
The only two clubs, who could compete for the title are Real Madrid and Athletico Madrid. Real Madrid had a bad season in the last one after losing Cristiano Ronaldo but has brought in world-class players this summer to fill that void. Eden Hazard, Luka Jovic are two of them and they could have a big impact to have Real Madrid win their 34th league title this season. Zinedine Zidane is also back as their manager again and he will be looking to win the league for the 2nd time as Real Madrid manager.
Athletico Madrid may have lost Antoine Griezemann to Barcelona but have brought in Joao Felix for 125m euros this summer, which was the 3rd highest transfer fee of all time. Felix has been incredible in the pre-season and the young Portuguese could be the player who makes the difference in the title race. Athletico Madrid finished as the runner up last season and won the league in the 2013-14 season, which was the only time a club other than Real Madrid or Barcelona won the league since 2004.
In the relegation battle, the recently promoted club Mallorca is highly expected to get relegated again to Segunda Division. Granada and Valladolid are also two clubs that could finish in the bottom three and face relegation. An extremely exciting season of Spanish soccer lies ahead.
