Spanish La Liga - 22. 08. 2016
The Primera División, commonly known as La Liga is the top professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. In total, 60 teams have competed in La Liga since its inception.
The League comprise 20 teams, three lowest-placed teams are relegated to the La Liga 2 and replaced by the top two teams in that division plus the winner of a play-off. La Liga has been the top league in Europe, according to UEFA coefficient over the last five years. Its clubs have won the most UEFA Champions League (16) and UEFA Europa League (10) titles.
Only 9 teams ever won La Liga. The most successful teams are Real Madrid with 32 titles and Barcelona winning 24 times. All-time top scorer is Lionel Messi with 312 goals in 348 appearances, second is Cristiano Ronaldo (260/236) and third Telmo Zarra (251/278). Most appearances made Andoni Zubizarreta – 622 games.
Spanish teams are recently very successful in European Cups. They won last 3 seasons of Champions League (2 Real, 1 Barcelona) and Sevilla won European League 3 times in a row. The first, second, and third teams placed in La Liga directly enter the group stage, and the fourth placed team enters the playoffs for the group stage of UEFA Champions League. Teams placed fifth and sixth play in the UEFA Europa League, along with the cup winners.
In recent years, La
Liga is mostly battle between Real Madrid and Barcelona. Barcelona won title in
last season. Real Madrid ended up second and Atletico Madrid third. Vallecano,
Getafe and Levante were relegated. Alaves, Leganes and Gimnastic were promoted
from La Liga 2.
