14 August 2020, Bayern München humiliates Barcelona in the quarter finals of the Champions League. The day after, everything looked different for one of the two biggest clubs in Spain. Chaos. Unprecedented Chaos. Now, almost one month later, things look totally different again. There is hope again. Players look motivated and a new team is forming, with last year’s signings that didn’t feel they got a fair chance yet.
That other team that has a subscription on the trophy, Real Madrid, seems to be a few steps further in the process already though. Zidane is a coach that, like Koeman, is very clear on what he expects from his players. Not meeting his demands means taking place on the side, or even on the tribunes. ‘Former’ Wales superstar Gareth Bale can tell you one or two things about that. In terms of odds, it thus seems that Real Madrid is favourite for this season. Though we can see this disbalance of teams at the start of the season as a great opportunity to benefit from the increased odds for Barcelona. If you, like us, feel that Barcelona has a good chance of bouncing back from the terrible last season.
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Outsiders for the La Liga 2020/2021 outright winner
The dangerous outsider, like every year, is Atletico Madrid. Experts say this year Atletico has a team that can compete with both Real Madrid and Barcelona. It feels a bit like Red Bull saying that this year they can really compete with Mercedes for the title in the Formula 1, and Mercedes still wins. But with João Félix, Jan Oblak and Saúl Ñíguez, who dares to say that Atletico doesn’t stand a chance for the title this year?
When Koeman coached Valencia, one of his players was so disappointed by the Dutch trainer that he tweeted sarcastically: ‘I hope the Koeman one day will coach Barcelona, then we at least get a more interesting league.’ So, here we are, thirteen years later. Can Valencia capitalize on the promise they made years ago? If so, it would be the football story of the year!
