La Liga

By Quentin Love

La Liga 23-24 (the Spanish soccer league) has been quite a ride so far. At the beginning of the season, expectations were high for star-studded teams like Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. But despite this, the team that sits at tied top of the league is the Catalan Girona FC. Atletico Madrid is clearly off the title, and Barcelona has been plagued with inconsistencies. Let’s go over this La Liga season so far.

Real Madrid – they’ve been phenomenal this season, sitting 1st in the league. Everyone knew their team would shine when they signed Jude Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund for more than 100 million euros. And he’s done more than shine, scoring 4 goals and assisting 3 in the Champions League, and as of January 10, 2024, he's scored 13 goals and gotten 2 assists in La Liga, and all of this is from the midfield position. And lots of other players, such as Valverde and Vinicius Jr, have been shining for the Los Blancos. So far, their season has been a huge success, with them securing many important wins, such as ones against Barcelona and Girona.

However, when it comes to their city rivals, Atletico Madrid, the story is different. Diego Simeone’s side started the season okay, but dropped to 5th in La Liga during the time of writing this article. They’ve had many good moments, like a win against Real Madrid, along with Antione Griezmann and Alvaro Morata’s stunning form for the side. But bad form, with losses against Barcelona, Girona, and Athletic Bilbao has proved the inconsistencies of this team. They can do a lot in the future, but they aren’t doing so well right now.

Girona on the other hand has completely smashed expectations.  Their manager Michel and the team of hidden gems have been tearing up the league this season. They sit tied for first in the league and have scored the most goals. Lots of this is due to their amazing attack. The Ukrainian star Artem Dovbyk, as of January 10th, has scored 11 goals and assisted 5 in the league, along with an unlikely wunderkind in the form of the Brazilian Savio who has scored 5 and assisted 5 at only the age of 19. Along with defensive stars such as Eric Garcia and Daily Blind shining for the team. The highlights of their season were when they pulled off shock wins against Atletico Madrid and Barcelona.

Speaking of the Catalan giants – Barcelona has had a lot to live up to this season. The season before the current one they had won the league, with one of the best defenses in all of Europe. This year they haven’t been nearly as good. They've conceded around the same amount of goals halfway through the season as they have through the entirety of the last. They’ve had a few good moments but it's not enough to hide their inconsistency, they’ve been struggling to score and have had to rely on players such as Lamine Yamal and Joao Cancelo to create goals. Their season hasn’t been the worst, but when it comes to La Liga, it would be very unlikely to see the Blaugrana finish the season on top of the league, especially with them several points off the top.

Let’s see what our very own students in 447 think – Jonah Dziky from 604 thinks that Real Madrid will win the league, but it's the complete opposite for Eric Wu, who has predicted Barcelona to win the league title.

The La Liga season so far has been exciting, and if you want to watch La Liga for yourself, go to ESPN!