It is a never-ending debate whether the English Premiership or the Spanish Primera Division is the best football league in the world. As a Liverpool supporter, I of course tend towards the Premiership, but since I live in Spain, I get to watch quite a bit of Spanish football, and I must say the two are very close. Last night I watched Real Madrid play Sevilla. When I turned on the game, the second half was just starting and Sevilla was leading 3-1 at the Bernabeu–a surprising result to say the least, and yet another sign of the current problems at Real. A combination injuries, poor defensive play and just bad luck have meant that last season’s champions are in 3rd or 4th place, 9 points behind leaders Barcelona (whom they play at Camp Nou next weekend).
Anyway, within about 10 minutes Real had equalized and for a long time it looked like the game would end in a 3-3 tie. But then Arjen Robben was given a second yellow card for bitching at the referee, hence a red card, so not only did Madrid have to play the rest of the game with 10 men, but Robben, one of their best players, will miss the Barcelona game as well.
And the inevitable happened–with a few minutes left Sevilla scored and won 4-3. What a game this was, though! A great advertisement for Spanish football indeed.
Now to the crisis connection. The word la crisis is now heard many times a day on TV and radio, of course in connection with the current economic situation. By coincidence I was going through some of my 2006 pictures today and came upon this one, of a Sevilla supporter on the day of the UEFA cup final that was held in Eindhoven that year. His banner would be even more applicable today…
