La Liga Trophy La Liga Fixtures for the 2010 11 SeasonThe Real Fed­eración Española de Fút­bol (the Span­ish FA) released the full sched­ule for the 2010-11 La Liga sea­son, and Jor­nada 1 will be held on the last week­end of August.  Both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona will com­mence their cam­paigns away from home as they visit Mal­lorca and Rac­ing de San­tander respec­tively.  Real Sociedad, the Basque foot­ball entity that spent the last two years in the Segunda División after estab­lish­ing them­selves in the Primera División for the pre­vi­ous forty sea­sons, will make their tri­umphant return to the top level of the Span­ish pyra­mid against Vil­lar­real.  The last match of the first round of fix­tures will be held that Mon­day night as Atlético Madrid hosts Sport­ing de Gijón at the Esta­dio Vicente Calderón.

Here are the full sched­ule of the open­ing round of the La Liga sea­son on August 28–30:

Mal­lorca — Real Madrid

Hér­cules — Ath­letic Bilbao

Rac­ing de San­tander — FC Barcelona

Málaga — Valencia

Deportivo La Coruña — Real Zaragoza

Lev­ante — Sevilla

Espanyol — Getafe

Real Sociedad — Villarreal

Osasuna — Almería

Atlético Madrid — Sport­ing Gijón

El Clásico matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona will be held on the Novem­ber 27 week­end (Jor­nada 13) at the Camp Nou and the April 16 week­end (Jor­nada 32) at the San­ti­ago Bern­abéu, where José Mour­inho will reac­quaint him­self with Pep Guardi­ola after Mourinho’s Inter Milan elim­i­nated Barcelona in last season’s UEFA Cham­pi­ons League.

Other der­bies of note include the Basque derby between Real Sociedad and Ath­letic Bil­bao in Rounds 14 and 33, the Valen­cian derby between Valen­cia and Vil­lar­real in Rounds 12 and 31, el derbi Barceloní between Espanyol and Barcelona in Rounds 16 and 35, and el Derbi madrileño between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid in Rounds 10 and 29.

If the races for the title, Cham­pi­ons League places, Europa League places, and rel­e­ga­tion come down to the final day, as it has for the past few sea­sons, here are the final round of fixtures:

Real Madrid — Almería

Osasuna — Villarreal

Real Sociedad — Getafe

Espanyol — Sevilla

Lev­ante — Real Zaragoza

Deportivo La Coruña — Valencia

Málaga — Barcelona

Rac­ing de San­tander — Ath­letic Bilbao

Hér­cules — Sport­ing Gijón

Mal­lorca — Atlético Madrid

For the rest of the sched­ule, refer to the RFEF web­site here.  La Liga will con­tinue with one Mon­day match every round, and a Fri­day fix­ture may be included by the start of the sea­son.  While Real Madrid and Barcelona will likely lead the way as per usual, the revamped Valen­cia lineup, the con­tin­ued solid­ity of Sevilla, and the always dan­ger­ous Vil­lar­real will chal­lenge the duop­oly all sea­son, and Hér­cules and Real Sociedad will sur­prise many as they return to La Liga.

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July 12, 2010 - 06162402 date 11 07 2010 Copyright imago Sven Simon Winner photo Team photo Spain Spanish s team with the World Cup on the Lawn Award Ceremony happiness cheering Emotions Exuberance Final Netherlands NED Spain ESP 0 1 n v at 11 07 2010 in Johannesburg Football Weltmeistschaft 2010 in of 11 06 11 07 2010 men Football World Cup National team international match Final Johannesburg Victory Winner World Champion Celebrations Winner photo Vdig 2010 horizontal premiumd.

After Euro 2008, Vicente del Bosque took the reins of the Span­ish national team from Luis Aragonés, the man that led Spain to their first inter­na­tional tour­na­ment con­quest since 1964 when they hosted and won the sec­ond UEFA Euro­pean Cham­pi­onships, known then as the Euro­pean Nations’ Cup.

Aragonés’ tac­ti­cal style went com­pletely away from for­mer Spain bosses Javier Clemente and, to a lesser extent, José Anto­nio Cama­cho and Iñaki Sáez with a fluid, pass­ing, pos­ses­sion game that would frus­trate the oppo­si­tion into defend­ing for most of the match.  Aragonés lifted the under­achiev­ing moniker off this Span­ish national team and infused the con­fi­dence and the men­tal for­ti­tude that the Span­ish player did not com­mand for the bet­ter part of fifty years.

Whereas Aragonés dis­played a more demon­stra­tive atti­tude both on the train­ing pitch and the tech­ni­cal area, del Bosque showed an under­stated and tran­quil demeanor that would also work with a dress­ing room full of world-class play­ers and egos.

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Carles Puyol Celebrates Scoring Winning Goal Spain World Cup 2010 Germany V Spain (0-1) 07/07/10 Semi Final in Durban FIFA World Cup 2010 Photo Robin Parker Fotosports International Photo via Newscom

David Villa became the tal­is­man for the Span­ish national foot­ball team, scor­ing five of Spain’s six goals in the tour­na­ment.  Xavi Hernán­dez and Andrés Ini­esta con­trolled the mid­field with their inci­sive pass­ing and ball pos­ses­sion.  Fer­nando Tor­res could not get into stride as he strug­gled for form from his April knee surgery and was even­tu­ally benched in favor of Pedro Rodríguez against Ger­many.  The Cesc Fàbre­gas saga between Arse­nal and Barcelona con­tin­ued to rage as Fàbre­gas insisted on return­ing to the club of his youth while com­mit­ting to Arse­nal as their cap­tain at the same time.  Telecinco sports jour­nal­ist Sara Car­bonero some­how “dis­tracted” boyfriend Iker Casil­las before the Switzer­land game and directly led to Spain’s only loss of this World Cup.

All these sto­ries fol­lowed La Furia Roja through­out this World Cup, but the under-reported story with this team is the effec­tive­ness of the back four, in par­tic­u­lar the leader of the defense, Car­les Puyol.

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CAPE TOWN, June 30, 2010 Players of Spain celebrate their victory after the 2010 World Cup round of 16 soccer match against Portugal at Green Point stadium in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 29, 2010. Spain won the match 1-0.

When Spain fell to the hands of Switzer­land in the open­ing match of World Cup 2010, the vul­tures sud­denly appeared from the sky and cir­cled around their “dying” car­cass.  No team has ever won the World Cup after los­ing its first match.  The ghosts from yes­ter­year are ris­ing from the dead and haunt­ing this cur­rent team about their ances­tors’ past fail­ures.  Pre­vi­ous entre­nador Luis Aragonés ranted about Vicente del Bosque and indi­rectly under­mined most of what Vicente del Bosque has done with this team.  Although Spain has only made it to the quar­ter­fi­nals after defeat­ing 1–0 over Por­tu­gal in Cape Town yes­ter­day, La Furia Roja’s form sug­gests that ris­ing to the occa­sion will not be the same prob­lem as it has in pre­vi­ous inter­na­tional competitions.

Spain’s only injury con­cern before their match against Por­tu­gal was Xabi Alonso’s sprained ankle he suf­fered against Chile, but del Bosque slot­ted him in the cen­ter of mid­field after pass­ing a late fit­ness test.  Del Bosque saw no rea­son to change his start­ing eleven, but if he had any reser­va­tions about one of his play­ers, it would have been Fer­nando Tor­res because of his erratic play in the group stage.

99% of the time, Tor­res would be an auto­matic starter, but still recov­er­ing from knee surgery in April, his lack of match sharp­ness became painfully obvi­ous in his starts against Hon­duras and Chile when his first touch dis­ap­peared on him on numer­ous occa­sions, and his fin­ish­ing would have the usual Nike T90 ball well off tar­get, much less the unpre­dictable Adi­das Jab­u­lani ball.

After a strong first few min­utes where he made threat­en­ing runs into the penalty area and curled a shot from the left side of the penalty box that forced a div­ing save from Eduardo at his far right post, Tor­res’ con­tri­bu­tions were min­i­mal.  Fer­nando Llorente came in for Tor­res in the 58th minute, and after Llorente lit a sec­ond spark for the Spaniards after the hour mark, del Bosque might need to recon­sider who plays along­side David Villa in the quar­ter­fi­nals against Paraguay.

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June 25, 2010 - South Africa - Football - Chile v Spain FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010 - Group H - Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria, South Africa - 25/6/10..Spain's David Villa celebrates after scoring their first goal.

With an unfath­omable yet real­is­tic pos­si­bil­ity of an uncer­e­mo­ni­ous exit from FIFA World Cup 2010, the Span­ish national foot­ball team tus­sled with a Chilean side that has been one of the most impres­sive teams in this tour­na­ment thus far.  Marcelo Bielsa, Chile’s man­ager, insisted on a pos­i­tive approach with an indi­rect empha­sis on flair that is usu­ally reserved for their South Amer­i­can rivals Argentina and Brazil.

While Bielsa trans­formed an under­achiev­ing and under­whelm­ing Chilean national team into a legit­i­mate force in inter­na­tional foot­ball, he still has the lin­ger­ing stain of Argentina’s 2002 World Cup dis­as­ter when, as Argentina man­ager, he failed to send La Albice­leste through the group stage for the first time since the 1970 World Cup when Argentina failed to qual­ify for that tour­na­ment.  He stated his inten­tion in the pre­ced­ing press con­fer­ence that his team would go out to win the match despite only need­ing a draw to ensure a place in the Round of 16, and through the first two matches, there was no rea­son not to take his word.

For Vicente del Bosque, his team improved dra­mat­i­cally as they notched a 2–0 vic­tory against an over­matched Hon­duras team that looked grate­ful just to par­tic­i­pate in this World Cup, but the build­ing theme that the Span­ish wanted to quash was the lack of fin­ish­ing at those vital moments in the penalty area.  Of the 63% of the pos­ses­sion Spain had against Switzer­land, 34% of that 63% was in the Swiss final third, but they could not break through an obsti­nate Swiss defense.  In the first two matches, Spain accu­mu­lated a stag­ger­ing forty-six shots but only mus­tered eight shots on goal in each match.

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24544 421291615199 756720199 5252735 3510567 n Where to Watch Spain World Cup Games in South Florida

If you live in South Florida or if you’ll be here dur­ing the World Cup tour­na­ment, you can watch all of the Spain World Cup games live at Wowies Sports Grill located in Boca Raton, Florida.

Wowies fea­tures 31 big screen TVs, HD broad­casts, excel­lent food, three full-liquor bars and ser­vice from the beau­ti­ful Wowies servers and bartenders.

The sched­ule of first round games fea­tur­ing Spain that will be shown at Wowies are:

  • Spain v Switzer­land, Wednes­day, June 16, 9:30am
  • Spain v Hon­duras, Mon­day, June 21, 2pm
  • Spain v Chile, Fri­day, June 25, 2pm

Wowies fea­tures a happy hour every day from 12-7pm with half-priced drinks. Plus, you can get a coupon for a free beer by going to our sis­ter site World Cup Buzz at http://www.worldcupbuzz.com/wowies

Wowies is open 9:30am for all of the World Cup games (except the 7:30am kick­offs). I look for­ward to see­ing you there!

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la liga talk logo 184x76 Write for La Liga Talk: Last Call

This writer has not fallen off the face of the earth after the sea­son con­cluded in mid-May.  I am writ­ing this as I leave on a boat from Napoli en route to Palma de Mal­lorca.  I have been trav­el­ing through Europe these past weeks, and I was in Barcelona to cover the FC Barcelona pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, and that report will be dis­sem­i­nated once I return to the United States next week along with columns about the Span­ish national team in South Africa.

After a self-imposed hia­tus from a long but thrilling La Liga sea­son, La Liga Talk will be the home for the Span­ish national team in FIFA World Cup 2010.  After a cou­ple of friend­lies against the King­dom of Saudi Ara­bia and the Korea Repub­lic, where La Furia Roja did not play as well as expected, Spain still holds the co-favorite title with Brazil to win the World Cup.  These inter­na­tional exhi­bi­tions before the tour­na­ment only mat­ter if a player or play­ers suf­fer injuries that will affect their health sta­tus for any offi­cial game time (ask Ivory Coast about Didier Drogba).

As well as cov­er­ing Spain through­out their excur­sion in South Africa, La Liga Talk will host many arti­cles and columns about trans­fer rumors (includ­ing the over­an­a­lyzed and over­writ­ten Cesc Fàbre­gas saga) and other news related to the twenty teams in Spain’s first divi­sion this sum­mer.  For exam­ple, the FC Barcelona pres­i­den­tial elec­tions will take place on June 13, and the man that will lead from the top will have a major role in the future direc­tion of one of the top club teams in world foot­ball.  The suc­cess of out­go­ing pres­i­dent Joan Laporta heaps more pres­sure on the next pres­i­dent to con­tinue these suc­cess­ful, trophy-winning seasons.

While there are no matches played on the pitch dur­ing the close sea­son, the con­stant bat­tles waged by the clubs off the pitch can some­times deter­mine final place­ment in La Liga more than what the play­ers do on the field.  So keep updated with sum­mer Span­ish foot­ball news with La Liga Talk, as it will be out on the fore­front on the top sto­ries ema­nat­ing from Spain.

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