The carnival is finally over. Now it is time to go back to your own houses. You do not belong to any nationality anymore. But you are a Mancunian, Londoner, Roman, Catalan, Scoucer or resident of any other region depending upon the club you play for. Come August and the bread and butter time for the footballers begins. It is the beginning of the professional season. Goaaal makes a preview of the three strongest football leagues in the world.
English Premier League
As seen in the previous season, Chelsea starts again as the favourites to win the title. Even before the beginning of the transfer season, Chelsea has announced their intention by making two huge signings. Signing Michael Ballack from Bayern Munich on a bosman free transfer was a big coup. By signing Andriy Shevchenko for a Premier League record fee of around £ 30 million, they have also made their intentions clear in Europe.
Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal will be fighting harder to match the bench mark set by Chelsea. Fears about the exit of Ruud van Nistelrooy and Christiano Ronaldo have raised doubts over Man Utd’s chances this season. With the departure of Roy Keane from Man Utd, Sir Alex Ferguson will be keen to strengthen his midfield with two quality signings. Some of his prime targets are Michael Carrick, Riquelme, Mahamadou Diarra, Javier Mascherano etc. Arsenal will be leaving Highbury this season for their new 60,000 seater Emirates Stadium in nearby Ashburton Grove, Islington.
Last season the gap between the champions and the runners up (Man Utd) were that of eight points. In the 2004-05 season the gap was 12 points. The legend of Sir Alex has been built around masterminding upsets. It has to be seen whether the man who proved ‘you win nothing with boys’ theory wrong can finally match Chelsea’s roubles.
Primera liga
The Spanish season will be interesting to watch as Fabio Capello begins his second stint as the manager of Real Madrid. It is also interesting to see whether the new President Ramon Calderon will bring to Real, Fabregas, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo as promised.
On the other hand, Real’s arch rivals Barcelona are a well settled team with a young manager in Frank Rijkaard and the best player in the world in Ronaldinho. If Capello doesn’t come up with something special, it is highly likely that the title will once again move to Nou Camp.
Valencia and Villareal are other two teams that can challenge Real and Barcelona for the title. It would be interesting to see whether stars like Joaquin, Fernando Torres, David Villa, Aimar etc will continue to play in Spain.
Serie A
Italian Serie A is currently amidst a corruption scandal drama with champions Juventus, runners up A.C. Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio being the accused. Juve could be relegated to the third division with the loss of six points and be stripped of its last two league titles. The other accused will be relegated to the second division with Milan losing 3 points and the other two losing 15 points.
If Juve and Milan are relegated, Inter Milan would be declared winners of the previous two seasons. If such a scenario occurs indeed, then there will be a flight of players from these four clubs to the rest of Europe and Inter will be locking horns with A.S.Roma for the Scudetto.
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