The Spanish League or La Liga (in Spanish: La Liga) or La Liga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is an official tournament founded in 1929, and it is the first division of the Spanish League, in which Spanish football clubs compete in order to win the league title, which is considered one of the Elite leagues around the world, with all clubs playing 38 matches.
The competition began in 1929 and Barcelona won. 20 teams compete in the league. The three teams with the lowest points are relegated to the second division. 60 clubs have participated in the Spanish League throughout its history, 9 of them won the title, and since 1950, Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated most of the league championships. Real Madrid won the title 36 times, which is a record, while Barcelona won the title 27 times. However, other clubs were able to achieve the title: Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Valencia, Real Sociedad, Deportivo La Coruña, Real Betis, and Sevilla.
Real Madrid won the league title for the thirty-sixth time in its history.
the date
In April of 1927, Jose Maria Ache, director of the Arenas Club, proposed the idea of a national league in Spain, and after considering the size of the league and who would compete in it, the Spanish Federation approved the ten teams that would form the first super league in 1929. These teams were Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Arenas, Atletico Madrid, Espanyol, Real Union and Racing Santander all qualified on the basis of being Spanish Cup winning teams.
The thirties and pre-thirties
The first years, and despite Barcelona winning the first title in the history of La Liga, the Basque club Athletic Bilbao was the most powerful and powerful club among all. With coach Fred Pentland, Athletic Bilbao was unbeatable, achieving the league and cup double in 1930 and 1931. They won the cup four times in a row between 1930 and 1933, and were runners-up in 1932 and 1933. It was only the Basque team that inflicted the worst defeat in the club’s history, 12-1, on Barcelona. The team that was fanatical about its own race and that refused to attract any foreign players benefited from the federation’s decision. The number of foreign players was limited to three players to dominate in that era, knowing that only seven tournaments were held in the thirties era from 1930 to 1936 due to the Spanish Civil War.
Forties
When the Premier League resumed after the civil war, the stars of Atletico Madrid, Valencia, and the Andalusian club Sevilla shone in the league. While other clubs lost their players due to their exile, execution, or being victims of the war, the Atletico Madrid team, which became known after the war as Atletico Aviation due to its merger with the Aviacion Nacional de Zaragoza team, so that the team name became Atletico Aviacion de Madrid. The merger strengthened the Atletico team and its legendary coach, Ricardo Zamora, and gave them an advantage over The rest of the clubs won the first title in 1940, then achieved the second immediately after that in 1941. After these two years, the young team in Valencia that preceded the war matured more and more after it and achieved the title three times in the years 1942, 1944 and 1947. During that period, no specific team emerged to be the master of the League, so in a decade, four clubs shared the league championship.
The dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona
Although Atletico Madrid were champions in 1950 and 1951 under the leadership of the experienced Helenio Herrera, the 1950s era was the seed of what we see now in our present era, the dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona. In the thirties, forties and fifties, there were restrictions imposed on foreign players. Clubs were not allowed to register more than three foreign players in the team, but what Barcelona and Real Madrid did was circumvent these laws by settling Di Stefano, Puskas, and Kubala to grant them Spanish citizenship. Inspired by the amazing Hungarian club Kubala, the Catalan club won the titles in 1952 and 1953. Di Stefano, Puskas and Francisco Gento formed the nucleus of a Real Madrid team that went on to dominate the league for the remainder of the decade. Madrid won the first division championship for the first time in 1954 (the first Premier League championship was in 1932), then for the second time for the second year in a row in 1955, and they followed it with 1957 and 1958, winning four titles in that era. Then Barcelona returned in 1959 and 1960 with former Atletico Madrid coach Helenio Herrera and their new player Luis Suarez, who won the Golden Ball in the same year.
The sixties, seventies and the Madrid era
The sixties and seventies were the years of eternal glory for the White Club, with 14 championships out of 20, and there was no voice louder than the voice of Real Madrid. This golden era that made the history of the Royal House witnessed five consecutive titles from 1961 until 1965 and twice three consecutive titles between the years 1967 - 1969 and 1978 - 1980. In this era alone, Club Atletico Madrid was the real opponent of Real Madrid, winning four titles in 1966, 1970, 1973 and 1977. Among other clubs, Valencia in 1971 and Barcelona, inspired by Dutchman Johan Cruyff in 1974, broke Real Madrid's continued dominance.
Those immortal years for Real Madrid were the hero of the most influential and respected person in the club and the one responsible for transforming Real Madrid from the second club after Atletico Madrid in Madrid to the most successful Spanish and European club, the person who passed away and the club’s stadium was named after him, President Santiago Bernabeu.
The eighties
Madrid's dominance ended in 1981 when the original Basque club, Real Sociedad, won the first title in the club's history, followed by the second in 1982, then in 1983 and 1984, the other Basque club, Athletic Bilbao, succeeded in winning both titles, and in 1985 Barcelona succeeded in winning the title before Real Madrid returned. To repeat a new quintet from 1986 until 1990 with a team led by Leo Beenhakker, Hugo Sanchez and Emilio Butragueño.
The nineties.. Cruyff and the dream team
This period witnessed the beginning of a new era for Barcelona, in which Johan Cruyff returns at the helm