In the early days of football and throughout most of the 20th century, it wasn’t uncommon for players to stay at a club for their entire career. Legends such as Santiago Bernabeu, Giampero Boniperti, Lev Yashin and dozens of others all stayed with one team for decades. It was kind of the thing to do.
You can tell it's going to be a special season for Real Madrid. One stat proves everything:
Real Madrid have scored in 69 consecutive games in all competitions.
Most exciting attack in the #UCL? pic.twitter.com/O7lYaUO4Kl— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 22, 2017
Every football club in the world wants to buy Lionel Messi, but there are only a few that can even begin to think about maybe trying to buy him, because Messi would cost a truly absurd amount of money. We'll start with Lionel Messi's $352.7 million release clause, a sum so insanely high that until a few weeks ago it was unfathomable that anyone would ever pay it, even for the best footballer ever.
Like a worm-filled peach, Barcelona appear to be rotting from the inside. After the departure of Neymar and the inability to bring in a replacement (they reportedly have given up on Philippe Coutinho), Barcelona's business-folk have not been holding up their end of the bargain.
After flirting with relegation last season, Deportivo La Coruna were not expected to prove a very significant challenge for Real Madrid as they opened their La Liga campaign on Sunday, and the Estadio Riazor in Galicia proved to be a comfortable site to begin their title defense for Los Blancos.
With Ousmane Dembele’s transfer opera turning sour and Luis Suarez out for up to five weeks with a knee injury, Barcelona opened their La Liga campaign on Sunday with Lionel Messi shouldering the burden of his side’s attacking ambition.
But the play of the day wasn’t provided by Messi, it was provided by the only Argentinian teammate he can rely on, Javier Mascherano.
Real Madrid are going to win La Liga. It's better to come to terms with this now so you can actually enjoy the season. If you go into the season thinking someone else might have a chance and Real Madrid open up a 10-point lead by Christmas, you are going to be disappointed. So ward off the disappointment. Barcelona are depleted and Atletico Madrid are plucky but outgunned. Real Madrid are going to win La Liga.
This is fine! Lots of people enjoy the Bundesliga even though they know Bayern Munich are going to win. You can still enjoy the season even if you know how it ends already.
Lionel Messi has agreed to sign a new contract with Barcelona, but Messi has not actually signed said contract yet.
This is obviously not good for Barcelona, who have to deal with the fallout from Neymar's transfer. Messi's current deal runs out after this season, but Barcelona have always maintained Messi would stay at the Camp Nou. It seemed like that was a certainty when La Pulga's new deal was announced earlier in the summer, to be officially signed when Messi showed up for pre-season training.
The Royal Spanish Football Federation upheld Cristiano Ronaldo’s five-match ban on Wednesday, keeping the Real Madrid star out of Wednesday evening’s second leg of the Spanish Super Cup and the first four games of the La Liga campaign.
Ronaldo received two yellow cards in Sunday’s first Super Cup leg in Barcelona to be sent off early. His first came for taking his shirt off after scoring a brilliant goal. The second was when the referee deemed he took a dive in the box.