Being a rather large continent with numerous different countries and customs to offer, Europe is known for rather a lot. Dominantly known for the humongous number of cultures and religions it embraces, the one that it practices on the largest scale is football. The biggest religion in the world. It is the continent endowed upon with one of the best football players and teams the world has ever witnessed.
Be it clubs like Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona or national teams like Germany, Italy, England; this part of the world has never let the spice in football deteriorate. Players like Antonin Panenka with his famous European Championship finals penalty or Ryan Giggs and Francesco Totti, the one-club loyals or the legendary Ferenc Puskás and many more have graced this beautiful game with their presence. The standards of European football have always been a notch higher than the rest of the world.
With the major football leagues having had a close to their season, it’s a final showdown to the “The European Championship” that remains; UEFA Champions League. But before proceeding further to this most celebrated festival of the Club football arena, let’s take a look back at how the various European Leagues turned out eventually.
1. English Premier League
Get over London! Get over Manchester! Get over Merseyside! Because the ‘foxes’ are in town. With an impeccable run of form over the course of the league, Leicester City Football Club have shown the world the powers of an #Underdog. Leicester won the Premier League thanks to an incredible Hazard show against the Spurs which officially got their name carved on the EPL Trophy. Spurs on the other hand, not only lost the race to be crowned as champions against Chelsea but also displayed a poor show against Southampton and Newcastle to lose their footing on the runners-up spot to Arsenal. The Manchester side of England displayed quite a poor season and are in line for a change of management with LVG still holding on to his seat. Lol! With stars like Vardy, Mahrez, Kane, Payet, Butland, Rashford, Martial and many more rising to the limelight, the stage has been set for further editions of the tournament. P.S.- Don’t know about Ylvis but the EPL surely knows ‘What does the Fox say?’ Celtic football club supporters may find out more about Scottish Football game tickets here.
2. La Liga
Its obviously Barcelona. Wait its Atletico and Barcelona now. Wait what! Its Atletico, Barcelona and Real Madrid now? Oh wait! Now its come down to Real and Barcelona. Aaaaaaand Barcelona it is. This is what the Liga can be summarized as a whole. A topsy-turvy pathway of intense drama. It had everything; with Real Madrid handed over a thrashing at their home in El Clasico to their manager getting sacked mid-season, with Atletico destroying attacks thanks to a wall like defence to losing in the penultimate clash and crashing outta the liga race, with Barcelona reigning their supremacy in the Liga by a dream run of undefeated matches to a narrow lead of just 1 point over Real Madrid thus taking the title decider to the last day of the league. It was the second consecutive and overall 24th League Trophy of Barcelona. And a new winner to the 2015-16 Pichichi(La Liga top scorer), Luis Suarez. Also, impressive performances by Antoine Griezmann and Jan Oblak from the front have promoted them to the hotshot zone in the transfer market. P.S.- Real Madrid finally find their MVP in Zizou (Zinedine Zidane).
3. Ligue 1
It wasn’t much to speculate about when it comes to France. You don’t exhibit the audacity to put your money on anyone other than Zlatan. PSG has won six French titles altogether, but this was by far the easiest. They claimed the trophy as fast as in the early weeks of March. The Ligue 1 turned out to be a drastic one-sided affair this season with the runners-up, Lyon finishing an astonishing 31 points below the table toppers, PSG. Talking about the debutant this season, Angel Di Maria set a new Ligue 1 record with a whopping 18 assists, the second highest in Europe this season after Mesut Ozil. Not to take anything away from PSG but Ligue 1 has been the least competitive of all the major European leagues. Retrospection by teams like Lyon and AS Monaco needed to stop lending treasures like Martial, Rodriguez, Benzema & even Falcao(*sighs*) and start acquiring some quality. P.S.- #DareToZlatan
4. Bundesliga
‘Mia San Mia’. The Bavarians did racked up a total of 30 net bulges, the first player since 1977 to reach this mark. On the other hand, Borus it again. Their 4th consecutive win to the Bundesliga title. What started as a shaky season for Bayern, eventually turned out to be a desirable one. Thanks to stellar performances by all the players of the team as always but what was the most impressive feat to watch was Robert Lewandowski’s rampage over Wolfsburg and that too in 9 minutes after which there was no turning back. Recording his career best in a single season, hesia Dortmund, despite a promising run throughout faltered at vital matchdays and hence paid the price. Also, crashing out of Europa at the hands of their former boss, Jürgen Klopp made things worse. With Pep bidding farewell to the Bavarians and Don Carlo(Ancelotti) ready to take over, a lot of shuffling and re-shuffling is in stock.
P.S.- The first division team(Bayern Munich) is taking full services of its Academy Training Centre (Borussia Dortmund) …………’once again’! #iykwim
5. Serie A
Another Scudetto(Serie A Title) to Juventus for the 5th straight time. Hi5tory. How monotonous. That’s where you are wrong. In a season of incredible resurgences, Juventus looked to be heading into dismal failure but turned their season around to retain the Scudetto. This has to go down as one of the most entertaining seasons in years. It was nothing short of a dream run for the Turin side with sitting at the 12th place after the loss to Sassuolo and then defeating Torino in the next game which saw the commencement of a spectacular 26-match unbeaten run. Records were broken both sides of the pitch with Gonzalo Higuaín emerging as the top scorer with a record 36 goals better to the 2nd top scorer by 17 goals. With Napoli into the UCL of 2016-17 and Roma set to play the qualifiers for the same, Italy is one country to look after this time.
P.S.- Old is gold and so was the ‘Old Lady’.
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A hopeless romantic in love with his pen and gulab jamuns. Can be found day dreaming of a parallel world of fiction. Takes pleasure in torturing people with his PJs. Football is his religion and Real Madrid his God. Has a firm belief that there’s nothing a Harry Potter book or a game of FIFA can’t fix. Never tell him to shave off his beard.
