The Spanish Football Thread

Spanish Court has suspended the players strike, meaning the games will go ahead...yayy

yay indeed, I think Barca will win in the Calderon and return the favour to Atleti.

3 wins from the remaining 4 matches to win the game treble.

Yup 3 finals left: Madrid - Barcelona - Berlin

Definitely Bye Bye Ancelotti and POSSIBLY Bale but think he'll get another year.

Fans and players want Ancelotti to stay... he will stay put. Madrid need some stability.

Think I seen someone say that; not since 1983! Has a Real Madrid manager stayed on to the next season without winning a single trophy.

(In 1983 it was Di Stefano...)

No chance. Of course they won't keep him. Players and fans may want him to stay, but they haven't necessarily wanted Capello, del Bosque etc. to go in the past.

Ancelotti is a man on borrowed time - wrongly, of course, but his sacking is inevitable.

Can anyone explain this players strike to me?

As I understand it's over the fact that television rights will be negotiated as a group and split up fairly between teams, not like the current monopoly barca and Madrid have. The cascading effect of this is more money to the smaller clubs, leading to a more balanced league in terms of finances and ultimately more money in the pockets of the players who don't play for barca or Madrid.

Why then are the players union striking in the interests of its members? Surely the only members it's negatively effects are the top earners who want to keep the status quo. And I am in no way bashing the like of messi, Ronaldo et Al. As from what I understand many of the latest la liga stars have kept several lower league teams afloat by donating money or playing in charity matches.

So who do this negatively effect? Is it just the players union being sore about being marginalised in the negotiations? I honestly can't see any legitimate gripe they can have.

Capello was not wanted by the fans and the relationship with the chairman was broken. Del Bosque was wanted by fans by Florentino Perez´s right hand at the time (Valdano) prefered to take a gamble on Queiroz...

Those situations were different and do not apply. Ancelotti may stay because he is wanted by everyone, that is the difference. Fans, footballers and chariman. Also, I can´t see any good or better replacement in the market at the moment. Benitez ends contract this summer with Napoli, but I think most people would rather stay with Carlo Ancelotti than having Benitez. Klopp would be a flopp, he can´t speak the langauge, don´t know the league... etc. There is just no one I can think of that would be a good signing and that people would prefer over Ancelotti.

There's talk of the Madrid board wanting to promote Zidane from within, though. Apparently they are keen to try and replicate the success of Guardiola at Barcelona. A former first-team star starting out managing the B team, before moving to the seniors and proving his worth. It's obviously a risky, risky strategy.

I'd be intrigued to see if a big club doesn't come in for Emery this summer, to be honest.

I like Emery, I really like him and he is well rated in Spain. But it would be strange to have as manager the same person that kicked Isco out of Valencia at the time, and called him "fat boy". I doubt Isco would like to work with him,, Madrid is keen on developing his talent, so Emery would not be a wise option for that.

I really like Emery. Two EL titles in two years is remarkable, especially when everybody was tipping Napoli or Wolfsburg this time around.

I think Real Sociedad still have good players but need a bit more firepower up top which may affect them.