that was a very mediocre effort from cron

pass that ronaldo

nah, should have just taken the shot

wow, again Higuain

damn another one Real shoulda scored. Mallorca had decent cover there i guess

oh wow Higuain just needs to touch that. Great ball from Benzema

madrid cant finish anything

Should have kept Pellegrini.

lolling at RM fail will never get old

Realize that Mallorca is a good team, but tbh I sorta expected this from Mourinho. From what I saw last year with Inter, he had a lot of draws and lots of 1-0 type scorelines (iirc.) I gave up on La Liga Title regardless, just hoping we get Champs League and Copa Del Rey.

Didn't see the whole thing but a huge MEH from Real Madrid.

Watching Mallorca - Real on delay.

Only in first half so far. Madrid not with much rhythm.

Seems first Mourinho take on their attack is Ronaldo and Higuain more or less in their usual positions, then Di Maria out right. I predict different takes in the future, but we'll see.

First half of Milan - Lecce was pure showboating as already pointed out. Pato, Pirlo and Ronaldinho (with most of the showboating naturally) were just wrecking Lecce.

Ronaldinho not quite standing still on the sideline either but actually with some movement occasionally finding space for himself without the ball. If that could continue it would really help the team.
Seedorf was pretty fail with the ball in the first half but did look fresh at least, meaning quite a few Milan players with actual movement making things so much better for Pirlo and he sprayed some brilliant passes.

Has to be said though that this was one of the worst defensive performances from a lesser Serie A team clearly playing defensive that I've seen in a while. Last place Siena were much better than this last season... Hopefully this was a very bad night for Lecce and all the finesse and skill coming from Milan were just too much for them.

2nd half seemed dead in the beginning (don't know if it woke up?) so I switched to Bordeaux - Marseille.

Marseille had an early lead through El Commandante Lucho Gonzalez but were playing with 10 men and Bordeaux who, despite their losses up front, still has a decently skilled and very physical strong midfield were putting on the pressure.
They did have trouble creating though and Marseille defended well in the final third right until a defensive mismatch right at the end where small but impressive Marseille Spanish right-back Azpilicueta lost a header to much bigger Bordeaux forward Modeste. 1-1 it finished then.

Also noteworthy I think is the tremendous pace Marseille can showcase on the wings right now. Remy is pure speed on the right and Ayew has speed + great skills on the left. I was also impressed with his defensive effort when the team was down to 10 men. One outgoing Ben Arfa probably wouldn't have provided.

On to second half of Mallorca - Real Madrid!

Yeah it was very frustrating how that never really got the chance. Injuries to for an example Giovinco didn't help the chance of a system with him and Diego together anyway but even when still healthy he just didn't get the chance.

On the right wing there wasn't much and Camo had his own problems after a great start but while not ideal both Iaquinta (played there in the past) and Salihamidzic (even if washed up) could have filled in as role players in that system.

This season of course with all the wingers coming in conditions could have been even better, much better, but it just wasn't to be and hopefully this Del Neri project eventually will go well...

I would never call it boring of course. For starters there have been so many of the very best players (including attacking) in the world for the last 3 decades that in that sense alone there have been plenty of entertainment.

But I know what you mean of course and there are even Juve fans who didn't like the Capello reign much. Finding it boring despite the winning, compared to (the also winning but more) previously under Lippi which I guess puts things in perspective when Lippi is the most "fun/entertaining/attacking" coach in recent years.

So it's definitely not Ajax, Barca or Milan attacking philosophy but more of a traditional Juve commitment to winning (whatever the means almost), hard work, strong tactics and emphasis on defending and discipline.

Really? Why on earth would you argue that?

because 90%-95% of his passes are short passes to Xavi/Iniesta, he's not involved in the offensive processes nearly as much as a defensive midfielder usually is

Bundesliga is so sick

most unpredictable bigish league by far(just look at that table after 2 gameweeks, LOOOOOOOL)

sample size cashy. Wolves ucl bound atm iirc in the epl.... france = germany imo in eveness

no

bundesliga is always like that
was like that the last 2 seasons as well

2 years ago for example there were like 8 clubs in the title race after half the season and Hoffenheim who just got promoted were top of the table

like 10 years back Kaiserslautern WON THE TITLE after just getting promoted bhahhahaa

I'd dispute that Barcelona are significantly better than Spain. For one thing, Spain has superior depth, there are young guys on Barca, like Krkic and Suarez who weren't in serious contention for spots on the Spanish roster last summer.

Having Messi and playing together a lot more would be advantages, but it's not like if they met in a cup tie Barca would be more than 60/40 favorites.

The obvious answer would be Atletico, Valencia and Sevilla who look like the best of the rest and set to battle for third and fourth place.

There always seems to be some kind of unpredictable surprise though. Last year it was Mallorca who has since lost key players (for Getafe it's similar), so if they manage to do well again, I guess they'll be a surprise once more.

Villarreal has seemed like declining for a while but still has good players and I don't think either them or say Atletico Bilbao putting together a good run would be that surprising. They don't have the squads of the previous three though but all have some question marks that could mean a weaker team challenging.

Sevilla recently has lost their otherwise so successful and solid way somewhat and are perhaps looking for a new one. Valencia have lost their biggest stars (bought well though) and Atletico historically even when things look really good has a history of erratic performances and even collapses. They have kept all their best players though + added some upgrades so there is definitely reason for optimism there.

Once the transfer window is over I'm gonna write some team reports/fashionably late season previews on random interesting teams from the big leagues here and all of the projected La Liga top 5 are certainly candidates there.

But players to watch or worth watching? So many and with the Spanish talent factory producing en masse, outside of Real and Barca as well, new faces emerge all the time and then there is all the South American talent continuously being imported, but more or less of the top of my head the more obvious ones from the obvious best of the rest (and anyone feel free to add, including from the "lesser teams", cause I will inevitably miss some):

Atletico Madrid: Forlan, Aguero, Reyes, De Gea, Tiago, Simao, Godin, Jurado, Mario Suarez and I guess with his Arsenal past Fran Merida

Sevilla: Navas, Fabiano (for the time being), Perotti, Kanoute, Cigarini (the beautiful mind), Capel, Renato, Negredo, Caceres (cuz he is a crazy wildman), Palop

Valencia: Banega, Mata, Soldado, Topal, Joaquin, Pablo, Chori Dominguez, Manuel Fernandez, Aduriz and coach Unai Emery for all his crazy gesturing on the sidelines

Athletic Bilbao Tank center forward and tank midfielder Llorente and Martinez are the obvious ones.
Then Mikel San José is a U-21 nt player on loan from Liverpool. Not sure who else are the current standouts among all the Basques?

Villarreal: Cazorla, Nilmar, Rossi, Senna, Marchena, Altidore, Cani, Valero, Capdevilla

and no matter what, these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_n...#Current_squad

Can we change 'Eredivisie' in the title of this topic to Suarez's Playground?

Wow at Ronaldinho's performance vs Lecce. Happy to see this great player back at it - So much win in only 4 mins of highlights.

sick stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaLt2NXGlD0

Really... I mean really? Unless you are basing this on the Catalan angle.

Semi-grunching re: the Busquets thing, maybe I'm a hater, but I think Busquets is at least as good as Mascherano who tends to get hugely overrated, imo. That said, Yaya >> Busquets.