Soccer News Soccer Match Reports, Football News
Two seasons previous, Valencia won their first Spanish Primera Division title for 31 years, largely due to the appointment of Rafa Benitez.
In the 2003-04 campaign, Los Che made it two wins in three years to beat Real Madrid to the championship.
Los Blancos put up a fairly dismal title defence, and despite having the talents of the Galacticos, they could only muster up a fourth-placed finish behind Deportivo, Barcelona, and the eventual champions, Valencia.
CHANGES
Prior to the season kicking off, the transfer window proved to be a tale of two transfers. David Beckham, having fell out with Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, had his eye on a trip to Spain and it seemed like Barcelona was the likely destination. However, the Englishman performed a U-turn and ended up joining Real Madrid, which prompted Barca to go for their second choice – the enigmatic Ronaldinho from Paris Saint-Germain.
Madrid and Barca put all their eggs in one basket with the two transfers, as no other expensive acquisitions of note were made, although Edgar Davids and Ricardo Quaresma did arrive at Camp Nou, with the Dutchman coming on loan from Juventus.
There were some high-profile exits from La Liga. Claude Makelele joined the Roman Abramovich revolution at Chelsea from Madrid, and Jose Antonio Reyes also moved to London with Arsenal. Barca made a rival club stronger when they sold Juan Roman Riquelme to Villarreal.
New Barcelona club president Joan Laporta opted to go for a relatively inexperienced head coach in the form of Frank Rijkaard, but the former Dutch international would start a revolution with the Blaugrana.
Carlos Queiroz was selected as Madrid boss even though former boss Vicente del Bosque won La Liga the previous campaign.
SUMMARY
Both Real Madrid and Barcelona started off their season with victories against Real Betis and Athletic Bilbao respectively. Madrid, in the defence of their title, defeated the Andalusian side 2-1 thanks to goals from new signing Beckham and Ronaldo. It…
Source link : https://www.footballcritic.com/season-reviews/valencia-reclaim-title-from-real-madrid-la-liga-2003-04/81
Author : [email protected] (Martin Macdonald)
Publish date : 2024-07-25 12:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
