La Liga Heads into 2017: It’s a Big Year For…

After a break over the Christmas period to recharge the batteries, Spanish football returns this weekend as La Liga heads in 2017. As ever, the new year brings with it new challenges and new opportunities for all, some with more on the line than others. Here, we look at a selection of teams and individuals for whom 2017 is a big year. 

Valencia

There was a tree, fairy lights and a smattering of decorations, but this was no merry message. “2016 has been a difficult year,” Valencia chairwoman Layhoon Chan said in a video posted on the club’s official website on Christmas Eve, “and I will like to apologize to our fans for a bad season.”

As with everything Valencia do right now, it didn’t have the desired effect. In fairness to Chan, it shouldn’t have been her making an apology but instead owner Peter Lim. But even if Lim had asked for forgiveness, Valencia fans wouldn’t have shown him any. 

On Tuesday, thousands of fans outside Mestalla called for Lim’s head, their chant all too familiar: “Vete ya,” or “go now!” And that was before Valencia were thrashed 4-1 at home by Celta Vigo in the Copa del Rey, a game in which they were 3-0 down inside 20 minutes having been an utter mess—as always. 

Hundreds of #Valencia fans call for President Peter Lim to leave the club after 4-1 #CopaDelRey defeat to #Celta (via @superdeporte_es) #VCF pic.twitter.com/jH2JHVoD7k

— footballespana (@footballespana_) January 4, 2017

With every passing week, Valencia’s situation grows more dire, the crisis deepening. On December 30, Cesare Prandelli became the fourth manager to depart Mestalla in little over a year. If you count Voro’s bouts as interim boss, of which he’s now onto his third, Valencia have had seven different managerial stints in 13 months. 

But Prandelli was different to those who’d gone before him. Instead of getting the axe, he walked. He walked, he said to La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t ESPN FC), because Lim promised him one thing and delivered another when it came to a transfer budget; because he saw a fractured squad either unable or unwilling to compete; because he saw all tunnel and no light; because Valencia have broken themselves in half. 

The atmosphere at Mestalla is toxic, but that’s a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. The club has a squad that’s unbalanced and devoid of belief. At an organisational level, there’s no direction, the owner is absent, reckless spending has backed them into a corner with financial fair play, key players must be sold, revenues are falling, there’s no shirt sponsor and a half-built stadium remains. 

Eighteen months ago, this was an exciting project, a club on the move. In 2017, Valencia is a club staring at relegation and a journey to extinction if they can’t turn it all around. 

Atletico’s Leaders: Simeone and Griezmann

One of football’s key concepts is that of identity. Beyond talent, players, strategies and systems, a footballing identity is about knowing who you are and what you’re about, a collective sense of self. No one in recent seasons has better represented that than Atletico Madrid, but it feels as though that’s now changing. 

Enduring their worst start to a season under Diego Simeone, Atleti have taken on the look of a team that aren’t exactly sure of who they are now, of what they’ve become.

A shift toward a more dynamic approach has been more complicated than first thought. The defence has suffered, and that robust structure has wavered. Simeone’s men have looked …

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