Spanish are sport lovers and in the second
half of the 20th century this love has generally been bestowed upon
football. The First division
of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol
Profesional (LFP), commonly known as La Liga in the English speaking world is
the top professional association football division of the Spanish
football league system.
La Liga has over 85 years of rich history,
founded in the April of 1927 by José
María Acha a director at Arenas Club De Getxo with the objective to develop a
national football league in Spain. Initially it compromised of ten teams some
of which were Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Real
Sociedad, Arenas Club de Getxo,
Real Union, Atletico Madrid and Espanyol.
Today La Liga is contested by 20 teams with
the three lowest teams relegated to the Segunda
Division and replaced by the top three teams of that division. This process
helps in giving different clubs a chance to contest in the finest football league
of the world. Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Athletic Bilbao, are the only three
founding clubs of the league that have never been relegated from the Primera Division.
The La Liga constitutes of clubs that host
some of the best football players from all over the world. Two clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated La
Liga since the 1950’s with Real
Madrid winning the title a record of 32
times and Barcelona 21 times. However
in the last two decades La Liga has
seen other champions like Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Valencia,
Sevilla, Deportivo, Real Betis and Sociedad. It is evident that the league has
matured and is opening up in terms of competition and the days of blank
domination by Real Madrid and Barcelona are coming to an end as both
the clubs now face considerable competition from other clubs.
Being the top two teams of
the league, the Barcelona Club and Real Madrid have die heart fans who
call the clash of these two titans as El Clasico. A term that was originally
used only to refer to competitions that were held in the Spanish Championship
El Clasicso today has been generalized to include every single match between
these two giants and rightly so because other than the UEFA Champions League
Final, the matches between these two clubs are the most watched matches.
In terms of performance and La Liga championship title winnings the
top 5 clubs of La Liga are Real
Madrid with 32 title wins, Barcelona 21 wins, Atletico Madrid 9 Wins, Athletic
Bilbao 8 Wins and Valencia 6 title wins. Additionally it is important to
mention over here that according to the International
Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) yearly rankings La Liga is the best league in the
world right now and according to UEFA’s
League Coefficient the strongest league in Europe for the past 5 years.
