Thursday, August 26, 2010

Have Barca met their match?

If anyone is going to be able to end Barcelona’s dominance of La Liga, it is going to be Jose Mourinho. Real Madrid’s new coach will be going all out to return the La Liga trophy to the Bernabeu after two seasons at the Camp Nou - and the Spanish La Liga odds suggest it will be a close-run thing.

Real president Florentino Perez has once again been throwing the cash around this summer. The recent capture of Mesut Ozil from Werder Bremen took the total spent to £61million. Whilst this is not in the same league as Manchester City, it is still a lot more than their rivals in Spain.

Perez couldn’t buy success last season but will be hoping to see some return this time around. German Ozil will join fellow countryman Sami Khedira, as well as Argentine winger Angel di Maria, as the club’s summer signings.

Mourinho has also brought in one of his favourite players in Ricardo Carvalho from Chelsea. The two worked together at both Porto and Chelsea and enjoyed a successful relationship. The new signings will join the Kakas and Ronaldos in a team desperate to win some silverware this season after a barren campaign last time around.

Barcelona on the other hand have spent relatively sparingly this summer - the only real noticeable signing so far has been that of Spain’s World Cup hero David Villa.

Despite the lack of big name signings, it has to be said they still look to have the better squad. Perhaps not man for man, but as a team there are few more settled and tighter units in world football.

This means Pep Guardiola will be confident his side can retain their position at the top of the table and he will be expecting another season of success.

Meanwhile, Ozil’s former club Werder Bremen got off to a disastrous start on the opening weekend of the Bundesliga season after losing 4-1 to TSG Hoffenheim. This has left them bottom of the league but this could just be a minor setback. Check out the German Bundesliga odds to see if backing Bremen could give you value.

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