The 2011-12 European soccer season gets started in full this weekend. Here is a preview of the top four leagues. We limited our focus to teams with a realistic chance to win the title. Tottenham fans, we apologize in advance.
English Premier League
Manchester United: Despite an indifferent season from Wayne Rooney and winning just five of 19 matches away from home, Man United won the Premier League comfortably finishing 9 points clear. There’s nothing to suggest other clubs have closed the gap. The club could use a slick-passing, incisive midfielder. With a Wesley Sneijder move off that could be Tom Cleverley. New $29m goalkeeper David De Gea looked tentative in the Community Shield match on shots from distance. Those could be concerns, but against Barcelona or Real Madrid. Domestically, they are overwhelming favorites to win a fifth title in six seasons.
Manchester City: City popped two big club cherries last season. They won a trophy (the FA Cup) and they finished in the top four. This year they face the next hurdle, veritably competing for a league title. That means scoring more goals. Part of the problem has been personnel. City has a Solomon-like harem of strikers, but has not had a reliable conduit to get them the ball (that may be Samir Nasri). They were far too reliant on Tevez’ individual brilliance. Part of the problem has also been tactics. They must be more ambitious against top-caliber teams. Three goals in eight matches against Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham won’t simply won’t get it done. They can’t beat teams in the table if they drop points head to head.
Chelsea: The Pensioners plucked wonderkid manager Andre Villas-Boas from Porto, where he won the treble in his only season. The trouble is his age, 33. He’s a rough contemporary of many players he’ll be relying on to perform. Villas-Boas will need health and excellence from Ashley Cole (30), Frank Lampard (33), Didier Drogba (33), John Terry (30) and Florent Malouda (31) to have a chance at a title challenge, especially with Essien out for at least half the season. Chelsea also must hope a summer off will resurrect Fernando Torres, whose confidence seems to be the only thing more frayed than his exhausted body. The $80m striker scored just 10 goals in 44 appearances last season, only one in 18 after moving to London. For Chelsea to be a force, he must do more than sell jerseys.
Arsenal: The Gunners, under Arsene Wenger, have qualified for the Champions League for 14-straight years without massive expenditure. That could change, and not in the way Arsenal fans would hope. The team fell down a chasm at the end of last season. Poor results dumped them from four competitions in succession. Players checked out and displayed a conspicuous absence of spine. A toxic atmosphere settled in and, if the Emirates Cup is anything to judge by, has not yet lifted. A massive overhaul was needed, especially in defense and central midfield. Wenger’s response, thus far, has been to stock the academy with a few teenagers, to buy a reasonably priced attacking winger and to sell the club’s two best players and starting left back. This comes at the exact moment the club chose to raise its extortionate ticket prices still further. Unless Wenger can convert the expected $97 million from the Fabregas and Nasri sales into established players in the appropriate areas by the deadline, things could get ugly very quickly.
Liverpool: As with the Red Sox, John Henry espoused Moneyball principals. As with the Red Sox lately, Henry has ignored them entirely and spent incredible amounts of money to chase success. Last transfer window the Reds turned the Torres transfer money immediately into Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez. This one they have revamped their midfield bringing in someone to lump crosses in for Carroll (Stewart Downing), someone who can provide the intelligent distribution missing since Xabi Alonso left (Charlie Adam) and someone to watch for the future (Jordan Henderson). The problem is their defense remains an enormous liability Jamie Carragher can hack someone down, judo tackle and let out a high-pitched shriek, but at 33, he’s no longer the man you want covering the half the field left behind when Glen Johnson bombs forward irresponsibly. Also, who’s playing left back? Finishing in the top four is vital, as it’s probably the only way they will keep Luis Suarez, but they will need many questions answered perfectly to get there. (When is the last time Steven Gerrard was a peripheral Liverpool storyline?)
La Liga
Barcelona: They may be the most dominant club team in European soccer history. In 76 leagues matches the past two seasons, they have lost three times and have a goal difference of +148. They have the core of the world’s best national team and, in addition, demonstrably the world’s best player. Forced to nitpick, the Catalans did not really have an auxiliary forward who could get wide and take on defenders. Barca also are probably are pushing an aging Xavi a little too hard (averaged 53 appearances the past 5 seasons, while playing an additional 59 matches for Spain). They signed Alexis Sanchez and Cesc Fabregas. Checkmate.
Real Madrid: Real Madrid are perfectly situated to win every league in the world, except the one in which they play. They have one of the game’s best squads, meticulously organized by one of the game’s best coaches. They are robust and defensively sound with ludicrous technical skill. Some of Jose Mourinho’s most stressful decisions will be choosing his starting lineup: Alonso or Sahin, Ozil or Kaka, Benzema or Higuain. That’s assuming Neymar doesn’t arrive until this winter. Tough decisions, like choosing to take a long weekend in Capri or Cannes. The question is can they beat Barcelona? With both teams at full strength, I don’t think they can. Real Madrid are a little more mechanical and deadlocks requiring that one moment of ingenuity tend to fall the Catalans’ way.
Bundesliga
Bayern Munich: Bayern are the Yankees of the Bundesliga, without a Red Sox to challenge them. When they don’t win the title, it’s normally because they’ve beaten themselves. They have a strong starting XI. Mario Gomez returned to his Stuttgart form, scoring 39 goals in 45 appearances last year. There is attacking talent – Robben, Ribery, Kroos, Mueller – to support him. They have Germany standouts Schweinsteiger and Lahm. Importantly, they have shorn up their weakness in central defense over the summer, adding big Jerome Boateng in the middle and Germany’s No. 1 goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. The problem for them will be depth. Altintop left for Real Madrid. Beyond the first line there’s not much there. A rash of concurrent injuries could cost them.
Borussia Dortmund: They were German champions last season. They have a really strong back four, including Matts Hummels and former U.S. youth player Neven Subotic. Contrary to expectation they’ve kept most of their title-winning team together. The one exception being Nuri Sahin, the Bundesliga’s best player last season. The 22-year-old was crucial for them with his defensive firmness, his playmaking from deep positions and his ability on free kicks. Doubt the importance of losing that type of player? See Liverpool before and after 2009 when Xabi Alonso left.
Serie A
AC Milan: Milan will try to replicate last season’s formula for success: a strong back four, creative firepower up front (Ibrahimovic, Robinho, Cassano, Pato) and an aging midfield just mobile enough to connect them. Pirlo is gone. They’ll try to squeeze one more season out of grizzled guys like Ambrosini, Gattuso, and Seedorf. They need Flamini, one of the few guys not reliant on little blue pills, to stay healthy. They also need an extended run in the team from 35-year-old Alessandro Nesta, one of the best defenders of his generation. When Nesta is healthy, Milan (and Italy) win trophies.
Inter Milan: The Nerrazzuri have been in stasis since winning the Champions League in 2010. They lost Jose Mourinho, kept most of the squad together and were an underwhelming version of the team that performed so magically the year before. They’ve spent the summer embroiled in transfer controversies, none to benefit the squad. It looks as though they’ve sealed a $50 million transfer of Samuel Eto’o to Russian club FC Anzhi Makhachkala (Eto’o will be paid a soccer record $25 million per year for his troubles). What’s unclear is if that money will be used to keep Wesley Sneijder or make a long rumored play for Man City’s want-out striker Carlos Tevez. A year older, perhaps a year wiser, but, having peaked two years ago, not much better.
Juventus: The Old Lady is always in the discussion, though still trying to recover from Calciopoli. Last year’s seventh-place finish was a disaster. They have made a strong push to get back, bringing in Italian-based veterans such as Vucinic, Andrea Pirlo and Quagliarella on a permanent deal. Where they’ve struck out is with high-profile targets from abroad. They signed Chilean midfielder Arturo Vidal but missed out on Sergio Aguero and both Elia and Michel Bastos did not consider the Turin club a step forward. Juventus has a skillful, veteran squad that should return them to the Champions League. They don’t have the force of nature type of player who will push them beyond that.