By DPA
Madrid : The big question before the forthcoming Spanish football season is: Will Barcelona be able to regain the ascendancy that they lost last spring to Real Madrid and Sevilla?
Barca looked set to dominated Spanish (and European, to a lesser extent) football for around five years, after their ambitious young team swept all before them between 2004 and 2006.
Ronaldinho, Deco and company looked well placed to keep the whip hand for a few more seasons.
Last season, though, Barca surprised the world by winning next to nothing. Real Madrid snatched the Spanish Liga title away from them by the smallest of margins, and Sevilla emerged as the most successful Spanish club in Europe.
Barca is keen to regain their ascendancy this season, and have spent heavily to do so.
The Catalan giants have brought in Thierry Henry, Yaya Toure, Eric Abidal and Gabriel Milito to give an already abundant squad even more depth and quality.
They are the bookmakers’ favourites around the world to win the forthcoming La Liga, well ahead of Real and Sevilla.
Real have had a typically turbulent summer, with coach Fabio Capello being replaced by Bernd Schuster in a bid to recapture the club’s traditional flowing football.
So far, though, Schuster’s new-look team has looked even more turgid than Capello’s – and the results have been much worse.
Real have lost six out of their nine matches in a dreadful pre-season, culminating in Sunday’s humiliating 3-5 defeat at home to Sevilla in the Spanish Supercup.
Schuster is already feeling the heat and getting irritated with the media queries. He is desperate for the club to sign Sevilla defender Daniel Alves and Chelsea’s Arjen Robben before the transfer window closes – despite having already spent more than 70 million euros this summer on six players.
Sevilla are the toast of Spain at the moment and the neutral’s favourites. But will they be as fast and effective if Alves is sold within the next week?
And do Sevilla really have the character and ambition to convert from being a “cup team”, albeit a very successful one, to a “league team”?
A good outside bet for success this season is Valencia, who have strengthened their squad with Timo Hildebrand from VfB Stuttgart and Nikola Zigic from Racing Santander although their hopes of capturing Rafael van der Vaart from SV Hamburg now appear to be dwindling.
The elegant van der Vaart is seen as the missing link in the Valencia chain, linking up a hard-working midfield with a glittering forward line starring Spaniards David Villa, David Silva and Fernando Morientes.
Last season Valencia were plagued by a plethora of injuries. This season could be a very different story for them.
Three other teams to keep an eye on are UEFA Cup sides Villarreal, Real Zaragoza and Atletico Madrid, all of whom have signed astutely during the summer and all of whom are desperate to get into the UEFA Champions League frame.