Some cynics in England have, not completely unjustifiably, labelled La Liga as a glorified version of the Scottish Premier League, with no club outside the Big Two having a realistic chance. That's a somewhat disappointing scenario as it wasn't too long ago when the likes of Valencia and even Deportivo La Coruna were providing sustained challenges to Barcelona and Real Madrid.
Barca were light years ahead of the field last season and whilst it's not unreasonable of Madrid fans to expect big things of their Galacticos Mark II, I suspect they'll find the gulf too big to bridge within a season.
The weak link in the Catalan side could well turn out to be their new signing up front. I was staggered to see Inter receive millions of euros and Samuel Eto'o in exchange for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The Swede did score a fair few in Serie A over the past couple of seasons but Italian defences aren't quite what they used to be. More pertinent is that fact that he has tended to freeze on big European occasions. Nevertheless, I think the brilliant creative prompting of Messi, Iniesta and Xavi will carry Barca to domestic and European success once again this season.
Real Madrid's performances will generate keen interest around the footballing world. For all the brilliance they've bought in attack, they haven't quite addressed their defensive deficiencies and their games could well generate high-scoring score-lines that were commonplace back in the fifties and sixties. As a Barca fan, I'm expecting to experience some - admittedly shameless - schadenfreude when it comes to Real's results during the season.
Atletico Madrid, Valencia, Villareal and Sevilla will probably fight it out for two Champions' League spots. Actually, with David Villa, rated by a lot of Spanish experts as better than Fernando Torres, and David Silva still at the club, Valencia could quite conceivably mount a pretty serious challenge.
There is one thing you can be certain of, though: the standard of football in La Liga will be unrecognisable from that in the SPL.
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