Football is clearly the most popular and loved sport in Spain among fans, viewers and aspiring athletes! Unsurprisingly, Spain has to offer some of the most famous football clubs and some of the indisputable leading teams in the world. Barcelona and Real Madrid need no introduction or special reference – they are Spanish teams that have conquered the world of football, known for their quality performance, top football players and unique styles. No wonder, why the Spanish football league- La Liga -is also one of the top leagues in the world, attracting the attention and catching the interest of the sport’s lovers around the globe.
If you are one such football lover or punter, you have certainly come across the La Liga tournament, the high profile participant clubs and the top of the notch, big-star football players. Betting-wise, La Liga is amongst the top events, concentrating huge amounts of bets every year, being strongly preferred by both regular and new punters and being thoroughly and rigorously analyzed by any sports betting website.
How big is La Liga and how important it is in the sports’ world can only be shown in numbers and stats. It is estimated that in the 2019/20 season, La Liga had 2.8 billion global viewers, which is a very large figure, considering that the English Premier League – which has the highest viewership in Europe, was watched by nearly 3.2 billion viewers around the world. La Liga’s figures for 2019/20 marked an increase of almost 12% in viewership compared to the previous season, signaling a strong growth and reflecting a spike in the interest of people in the Spanish league.
La Liga’s history
The Spanish football league – commonly known as La Liga or Primera División – was established back in 1929 and it has, since then, been held every year, with the only exception of the four-year period of the Spanish Civil War (from 1936 to 1939). In the first years of its existence, La Liga had only ten clubs in one division, though many years later and specifically in 1987, the league came to contain twenty clubs, a number which remains until today (except for the period 1995-1997, when La Liga consisted of twenty two clubs).
Throughout the history of La Liga, an aggregate of 62 football clubs have participated in the league and nearly a dozen of those have had more than 50 participations in all those years. In fact, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Atletic Bilbao and Valencia are the clubs with the highest number of participations in La Liga since its foundation.
Traditionally, La Liga has been dominated by the two top Spanish football clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona, but there have been periods where other teams have risen and have also pursued and ultimately achieved success. Real Madrid has won 35 times, Barcelona follows with 26 wins, Atletico Madrid with 11 wins, Atletic Bilbao with 8 wins and Valencia with 6 wins. Interestingly, Real Madrid and Barcelona have, together, 61 wins out of the total 91! There have been a few surprises in some seasons, like the season 1999/2000 when Deportivo La Coruña got the title or when Real Sociedad won in two consecutive periods 1980/81 and 1981/82 – or even much earlier when Sevilla won in the 1945/46 season and Real Betis in the 1934/35 season – but overall it is more than clear that it is a highly concentrated tournament, with the top two teams fighting over dominance. For more stats, info and records on club’s performances as well as football players’ scores and records you can visit the official website of La Liga and get all the relevant data!
La Liga system
The La Liga system is pretty straight forward. The top four teams are qualified for the Champions League, which is the largest and most prestigious European league being held every year. The fifth team – that is the team placed in the 5th position – gets qualified for the Europa League, which is the second most known tournament following Champions League. Now, the teams that are in the bottom three positions (that is 18, 19 and 20) are relegated to the second division – Segunda División.
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andym
Founder and chief editor of La Liga Blog, Andy fell in love with Spanish football after a university placement year in the Costa Del Sol. His favourite Tapas is Albondigas and on Saturday afternoons, Andy can regularly be found trying to emulate his hero Carles Puyol for his amateur football team.