Manchester City and Liverpool are emerging as prime candidates to remain in the Premier League. (Photo: Andrew Boyers / Reuters)
Hungary, Moldova, Scotland, Romania, Austria, Bulgaria. Thirty-one of UEFA’s 55 member nations in Europe have already given the green light to their domestic leagues this season. However, the main courses will begin to be served this weekend, when three of the five major leagues in the league Old World (The other two will start next weekend). They will do so with a dense and atypical calendar, conditioned by the World Cup in Qatar between 21 November and 18 December.
Fifteen weeks of full action will precede the break that will force the dispute over the World Cup. In that period they will play between 14 and 16 dates of the championships, which will stop only after the weekend of 13 November (eight days before the start of the ball rolling in Qatar), except in Spain, where the last the day before the stop will be November 9th. To this will be added the matches corresponding to the national cups and the six days of the group stage of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.
Several leagues have brought forward their usual start date, forcing teams to shorten the preseason period. Add to that that the pass market is quite active and will remain open until the end of August, so the campuses haven’t finished the setup and assembly yet. Reaching him as soon as possible can be an advantage in this first segment of the season before the interruption of the World Cup.
The mighty Premier League comes with some news
After scoring 34 goals last season for Benfica, Uruguayan Darwin Núñez is the new Liverpool card. (Photo: Andrew Boyers / Reuters)
The most powerful league on the planet, the English Premier League, is one that plays its opening day this weekend, with new features such as the ability to make five game changes (so far it had not been implemented) and the return to the top flight, after 23 years, of the historic Nottingham Forest, two-time European Cup champion in 1979 and 1980. Other things have not changed: a priori, the two great rulers of the last five years, Manchester City and Liverpool, restart as favorites.
Jürgen Klopp’s men no longer have Sadio Mané, key man in the last six seasons (120 goals and 48 assists in 269 games), but have added Uruguayan striker Darwin Núñez. Josep Guardiola’s, which saw the departure of players with a frequent presence in their rotation such as Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesús and Oleksandr Zinchenko, have incorporated Erling Haaland, Julián Álvarez and England midfielder Kalvin Phillips. Among these will try to intervene Chelsea, which has strengthened with Sterling and the Senegalese Kalidou Koulibaly, and Manchester United, which has a new manager (the Dutch Erik ten Hag) and has added the Danes Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martínez, but he lost Paul Pogba and he still doesn’t know if Cristiano Ronaldo will stay or leave.
In the French Ligue 1, few intrigues and many relegations
Christophe Galtier has replaced Mauricio Pochettino at the helm of Lionel Messi’s PSG. (Photo: Kimimasa Mayama / EFE / EPA)
Also this weekend a new edition of the French Ligue 1 will kick off, which at the end of the season will reduce the number of participants from 20 to 18 (there will be four relegations and only two promotions). Here the mystery is much less: nothing suggests that the reign of Lionel Messi’s Paris Saint-Germain, now under the direction of Christophe Galtier, is in danger. As a first sign, last Sunday they beat Nantes 4-0 in the definition of the Champions Trophy.
Preserving and empowering Kylian Mbappé, letting Ángel Di María go, putting the rebel Neymar in a box and betting on young reinforcements without much posters (Portuguese Renato Sanches and Vitinha, French Nordi Mukiele and Hugo Ekitike) was the new strategy of la leadership led by Nasser Al-Khelaifi, whose great goal is still the Champions League. At home, their strongest rival appears to be Olympique de Lyon, joined by Nicolás Tagliafico, Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) and Corentin Tolisso (Bayern Munich).
The Bundesliga of all time
After six years at Liverpool, Sadio Mané brings his football to Bayern Munich. (Photo: Matthias Rietschel / Reuters)
The other big competition starting this weekend is the Bundesliga, in which Werder Bremen and Schalke return after a year in the second division. The 60th season of the competition will see Bayern Munich as the super favorite, winner of the last 10 editions, which will have to accommodate a serious absence: after eight years, Robert Lewandowski has left for Barcelona. He was replaced by another ABC1 striker: Sadio Mané, who already scored a goal in the German Super Cup final against Leipzig. In addition, Dutch defender Matthijs de Ligt (Juventus) joined. “We lost a striker who guaranteed us 50 goals, but overall the squad has improved,” assessed Julian Nagelsmann, his coach on Thursday.
The Bundesliga has lost its other top scorer in recent years for this season, Norway’s Haaland. Borussia Dortmund had opted to cover up his absence of Sébastien Haller (34 goals for Ajax last season), but the Frenchman turned out to have testicular cancer which he had to undergo surgery and which will keep him away from sports practice, in principle, due to several months. Mario Götze’s comeback stands out: after two years at PSV in the Netherlands, the scorer of the German team’s goal in the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil will be the teammate of Lucas Alario at Eintracht Frankfurt, European League champion.
La Liga and Serie A can wait
Robert Lewandowski, the great bet of the renewed Barcelona. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown / AFP)
The start of the other two major European championships is scheduled for the weekend of 13 and 14 August. In Spain, Barcelona are betting a lot to green their laurels. The club that left Messi a year ago due to “economic obstacles” broke the bank: they signed Lewandowski as well as Rahinha (Leeds United), Jules Koundé (Sevilla), Franck Kessié (Milan) and Andreas Christensen (Chelsea). And it threatens more. The current champion, Real Madrid, could not fulfill his dream of adding Mbappé, let go of some historians (Marcelo, Isco and Gareth Bale) and was only reinforced with Aurélien Tchouameni (Monaco) and Antonio Rüdiger (Chelsea) .
The Italian Serie A will also start in a week. Juventus, another colossus that arrived less in the last year, opts for an important renewal: it gets rid of some of the players who had been part of the last decade of triumph (Paulo Dybala, Giorgio Chiellini, Matthijs de Ligt, Federico Bernardeschi and Douglas Costa ) and was reinforced by Ángel Di María, Paul Pogba (although a meniscus injury keeps him inactive) and Brazilian defender Bremer (Turin).
Unlike other seasons, Inter managed this market with discretion. His best move appears to have been to win back Romelu Lukaku after his spell at Chelsea. Even Milan, unexpected champion last season, did not move much: they added one of the great Belgian promises, midfielder Charles De Ketelaere (arrived from Bruges), and striker Divock Origi, but lost Franck Kessié. And the Roma of José Mourinho, winner of the Conference League, remained with Dybala, one of the most coveted pieces on the market after ending his relationship with Juventus, and with Dutchman Georginio Wijnaldum.
Source: Clarin
