Football Season 2020-21

With coming of May comes the end of footballing season across Europe. It is the time when best teams in their respective leagues are crowned champions and the one's which underperform are relegated to lower divisions. This weekend most of the leagues across Europe had their final matches where champions were crowned.(few leagues like in denmark and slovakia has still one matchday left)

                            (winners across various leagues of Europe)

It was a difficult season for all the teams across Europe, with a shortened season due to covid-19 all the teams had to play large number of matches in shorter span of time. It led to many injuries and breakdowns but still teams were able to choke out a way to play to complete their seasons, which is a remarkable feat for all.

With only European Finals to be played it is time to review the seasons across top-5 leagues. Here is my views on the same.

England(Premier League) 

For 3rd time in 4 years Manchester City lifted the title once again and showed their supremacy and superiority against other teams. But out of the 3 titles this one was their best. Sitting at 8th position on PL table around Christmas, looking a pale shadow of theeir former selves, they gathered themselves and made a remarkable turnaround winning 20 matches on a trot to get the title. Not only the title race but fight for European places was also interesting as only on final day it was decided which team qualifies for Champions league,Europa league and newly formed European Conference league. 

At the other side of table, as expected two of the newly promoted teams, WBA & Fulham got relegated along with last year surprise packages Sheffield United.

This season also saw many shocking results like ManUtd 1-6 Tottenham, Aston Villa 7-2 Liverpool, Leicester 5-2 ManCity and many more.

Spain(La Liga)

For several seasons La Liga has been a two horse race between Real Madrid and Barcelona with either of two lifting the trophy. But for the first time it was a 4 way battle and till penultimate week any of the top 4 could have won the league.It was one of the two top 5 leagues where title was decided on the final day. On the final day it was battle between teams from Madrid to win the title. And as expected final day was full of drama, both teams required a win to secure the title and both achieved that too. Both the teams won their matches after going a goal down at half time by a score of 2-1. Finally it was Atletico Madrid who won the title. It was on of the most exciting season of La Liga that I have watched.

On the other side of table one of the most surprising teams of La Liga, Eibar got relegated. For a team having the lowest budget in top 3 divisions of Spain, having a 7 year stay in La Liga was a shock for all. Huesca and Valladoid were other two teams to be relegated on the final day.

Germany(Bundesliga)

As it has been a ritual in Germany for the 9th conscutive time Bayern Munich won the Bundesliga title. It has become common in Germany to see Bayern win the league and it can also be said that 17 teams compete in Germany to see Bayern lift the trophy at the end. But a bigger news was that Lewandowski finally broke the 49 year old record of Gerd Muller of scoring 40 goals in a season. Lewandowski scored 41 goals in 29 games(5 less than Muller) which is a historic in itself. 

At the bottom a shocking result occured as Schalke one of the historic club of Germany got relegated. Only 2 years back they finished 2nd behind Bayern and now they getting relegated is a big shock for everyone. Another oldest club of Germany Bremen were also relegated from the league and Cologne will be playing a relegation play-off to see their fate.

Italy(Serie A)

In Italy dominence of Juventus was finally broken after 9 long years. Inter Milan broke the chain of titles for Juventus and won their first Serie A title in 11 years. It was mastermind of Inter manager Antonio Conte which turned the tables in Italy. Conte was the one who started dominence of Juventus in Italy and now he is the one who break their chain. On the other hand, perennial winners endured a difficult season just securing 4th position to qualify for Champions league on the final day of the season that too cause of Napoli whom surendered their 4th position. Another good news was that AC Milan again qualified for the Champions league 2013-14 season. This season showed return of Milan teams to power as both the Milan teams finished as top 2 teams in Italy. 

Bottom three consited of newly promted teams, Benevento & Cronte who were expected to drop followed by Parma who had a really poor season winning just 3 matches in whole.

France(Ligue 1)

It was France where biggest shock of the season occured, Lille overturned the Qatari backed PSG to lift the Ligue 1 title. Lille showed that that proper team management and stratergy can even upturn the money power of bigger richer clubs. Lucas Ocampos, sports director of Lille was the main architect for their success as he was the one who assembled the team capable of defeating star studded PSG whom have number of stars at every position. Title race in France was a thrilling affair, all the top 4 teams finished at a gap of 7 points from each other. France was the second place where title was decided on final day. All the 3 teams at top had a chance to win but at the end it was Lille who won the title by 1 point ahead of PSG.

Even relegation battle in France was a close affair as teams from 10-18th position were just seperated by 7 points. Only Dijon & Nimes were sure of drop before the final day. Nantes who finished 18th will now play the relegation playoff. 

Lille showed that even without having star players in your team one can go on to win the league just by proper planning and team work. Their win was as exciting for everyone as the one won by Leicester City in 2015-16 season in Premier League.

These are difficult times, everyone around the world are facing problems in their everyday lifes whether health or wealth issues. But even in these difficult times various Leagues across the Europe completed their seasons without any major issues.

For completing this wierd and and difficult season every team and player should be saluted as even in such a pandemic they played with full determination and gave us a way to divert our minds from stressfull situation around us and make us happy.

These were my views on the recently concluded football season, hope you all like it. Till the time next season gets underway be safe and healthy and keep reading my blogs.