La Liga

It’s the question that has plagued Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane throughout his time in charge of the club: What’s the deal with James Rodriguez? Does the French coach even rate the Colombian playmaker?

Following a season in which James only appeared in 26 La Liga games for the club, his lowest total since arriving in 2014, would James be shown the door this summer? The player has continued to excel for Colombia on international duty, where he's the focal point of the attack, but he's taken a back seat in Zidane's preferred 4-3-3 formation at Real. 

105,826 crowded into Michigan Stadium, better known as “The Big House”, to get a glimpse of Real Madrid and Chelsea stars like Marcelo, Oscar, Eden Hazard and James Rodriguez. At the end of they day, they were all talking about Real Madrid’s 22-year-old Dominican forward Mariano Diaz Mejia, simply known as Mariano.

Marcelo put in a man of the match performance, and Eden Hazard scored two wonderful late goals for the Blues, but Mariano’s goal was absolutely world-class.

Lionel Messi has had enough of sitting on his yacht in Ibiza presumably replaying his Copa America penalty miss over and over. Messi wasn’t due to join his Barcelona teammates in preseason training until August 1st, but the former Argentine international has forgone his extended break in favor of returning to training.

Messi is back https://t.co/mTyGZGGOz5

This La Liga season promises to be a hugely entertaining one, as the Spanish first division boasts three of the best club teams in the world, and also possibly the smelliest. CD Leganes, recently promoted to the first division for the first time ever, will introduce themselves to the world's top teams with a kit that features a scratch 'n sniff badge. Really.

We promise we are not making this up. They made a video about it and everything.

By January of 2004, Barcelona was a club in deep crisis. Since the 1999-00 season, they’d finished further and further down the LaLiga table — second in 2000, fourth in 2001, fourth in 2002 and a disastrous sixth in 2003. 

The 2003-04 season looked to be even worse yet. Club president Joan Gaspart had been forced to resign because of the decline, and his young replacement, Joan Laporta, had begun his presidency in farce after promising Barcelona supporters David Beckham only to see him land at Real Madrid.

Gerard Pique is Catalan, born and bred. He came up through Barcelona's famed "La Masia" academy and his grandfather was a vice president of Barcelona. Now, Pique occupies an arguably more important role at Barca: central defender. This has worked to his advantage in many ways. It granted him access to pop star Shakira, his romantic partner. It also made him a lot of money. But just how much? How much is Gerard Pique's net worth?

17-year-old phenom Martin Odegaard’s standing with the Real Madrid first team just became that much more confusing. The latest reports from the Santiago Bernabeu allege that Real Madrid club president Florentino Perez has forced manager Zinedine Zidane to include Odegaard in the club’s pre-season tour against Zidane’s wishes.

Well this is awkward. Barcelona and Real Madrid have gone and turned up in the same shirt.

The La Liga winners and the Champions League winners both unveiled their away kits for the upcoming season last week, and it looks like they got the same person to design them and he didn't feel like making two jerseys so he just made one and gave it to both teams.

Nike (Barcelona) and Adidas (Real Madrid) really should have checked with each other before making the new kits.

Such has been the ease with which Neymar’s transitioned to life in Barcelona that it’s difficult to imagine the Brazilian captain ever struggling following his move from Santos in June 2013.

However, Neymar has revealed to TV Globo that his first days at the Camp Nou were riddled with fright and nerves.