Most of Europe’s football leagues have been going for about a month now. In this post we will take a look at the top of the leagues versus the pre-season predictions. We will cover French Ligue 1, Italian Serie A, English Premier League, German Bundesliga and Spanish La Liga. Let’s take a look at the top four.
La Liga
Last year’s champions Barcelona is struggling in the Spanish league. They lost their last match away against Sevilla. Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta injured. After 6-7 matches we find Villareal at the top of La Liga at 17 points. In second place Celta Vigo (with Swedish striker John Guidetti) is chasing at 15 points. Barcelona is third, also at 15 points. Real Madrid is at fourth place, with one match lesser played. While the top four teams have a couple of draw results each, Barcelona is the only among the four that have two losses. We will see if the Catalonians can turn the tide. There is also a political struggle in Spain which can result in Barcelona being excluded from La Liga: If Catalonia is declaring its independence from Spain, they won’t be a part of a) Spain b) The European Union or (perhaps worse) c) La Liga.
Premier League
The big pre-season favourite in Premier League was Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. However, they have had a rough start of the season and are not a part of the top four. Instead, Manchester City is in the lead. They have got 18 points after 8 played matches. Arsenal and Manchester United is second and third at 16 points and Crystal Palace at fourth place with 15 points. The top three teams have 2 losses each. The rest of the Premier League might be hard to predict this year. Beforehand, we advised to consider placing a bet on Arsenal so we will stick with that.
Ligue 1
Many Swedes follows Paris Saint Germain in the French Ligue 1 because of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. PSG is in a clear lead to this date, 20 points, 2 points before second placed Angers, with one less match played. Caen and Rennes is at third and fourth place. Paris has got a good start of both Ligue 1 and Champions League. They will win many titles in French this year, but will they be at the top of the Champions League? Time will tell. The match against Spanish Real Madrid will be a good indicator of exactly how good PSG 2015-16 is.
Serie A
Juventus won serie A 2014-15. This year they lost a number of key players, Andrea Pirlo for example. They have had a rough start with only one win in seven tries so far. At the top we find Inter at 16 points, followed by Fiorentina at 15 points. Both teams have 5 wins in 7 respective 6 matches. Roma and Torino is third and fourth with four wins each. Although to early for any predictions, Juventus might keep struggling this season, having lost the team’s core.
Bundesliga
Bayern Munich was the big pre-season favourite and they are looking to deliver on that prediction. They are at the top of Bundesliga, 8 straight wins, 7 points before second placed Dortmund. Schalke and Hertha Berlin is at third and fourth spot. None of these teams can challenge Bayern for the domestic titles, however the fans are demanding more from Pep Guardiola’s men: They want the champions league where Bayern is currently two for two.
We will be back with another report from Europe’s soccer leagues in a month.
Source: Guardian.
