Column: In European leagues, the more things change, the more they stay the same
Here’s a tip for anyone seeking a coaching job with a major European soccer team: When looking for a place to live, rent, don’t buy.
The average stay for a coach in one of Europe’s top five leagues was between nine and 16 months last season, according to a study by the Swedish-based International Center for Sports Studies. That’s only slightly longer than the life expectancy of the average housefly.
And that figure doesn’t include the busy off-season.
Nearly a third of the teams in Spain’s La Liga, France’s Ligue 1 and the German Bundesliga changed managers since May. There were 10 coaching changes in Italy’s Serie A, including two in as many days at Lazio, which last month replaced interim coach Simone Inzaghi with Argentine Marcelo Bielsa, only to have Bielsa resign two days later to be replaced by Inzaghi.
But change isn’t the only constant on the continent. Apart from the English Premier League, there’s been a certain sameness atop the standings in recent years. So while France’s Paris Saint-Germain and Germany’s Bayern Munich enter the new season with new coaches, they do so having won four consecutive league titles. And Juventus has won five straight titles in Italy, the last two under Massimiliano Allegri.
But if the league championship races figure to offer precious little in the way of suspense, there are other story lines. Here are just a few:
Ligue 1: The French season is already 10 days old, and (surprise!) Paris-Saint Germain is atop the table — though it’s sharing that spot heading into Sunday’s second game of the season.
PSG lost just twice last season, finished 31 points clear of the field and outscored opponents 102-19. The team also won France’s two domestic cup competitions for a second straight year. But that wasn’t enough for Coach Laurent Blanc to keep his job, even after signing a two-year extension in February.
The team’s Qatari owners have made it clear they want a Champions League title, and Blanc never got the team past the quarterfinals of that tournament. So now Spanish Coach Unai Emery gets a shot — only he’ll be without Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who left for Manchester United after scoring 38 times in 31 league games last season.
Ligue 1 games will be broadcast on a weekly basis in the U.S. on cable outlet beIN Sports, which plans to air 152 games.
Serie A: After winning five league titles and becoming the first Italian club to win successive league and domestic cup doubles, Juventus still has something left to accomplish since no team has won Serie A six times in a row.
It will have lots of help in chasing that goal after luring five big-name players to Turin, among them Brazilian right back Dani Alves, who comes over from Barcelona, and Gonzalo Higuain, who scored an Italian-record 36 goals for Napoli last season. But those additions are tempered by the loss of midfielder Paul Pogba, who went back to England’s Manchester United on a record $125-million transfer deal.
Still, there figures to be a period of transition early in the season, which began Saturday, because Higuain plays best as a lone striker and Juventus’ recent run of success under Allegri has come with a 3-5-2 formation and tandem forwards.
A total of 266 games are scheduled to shown in the U.S. on beIN Sports.
Bundesliga: Italian Carlo Ancelotti is the new head man at Munich, and he has quite an act to follow now that the club has won four consecutive league titles, three domestic cups and a Champions League crown in four seasons under predecessors Jupp Heynckes and Pep Guardiola.
It probably won’t skip a beat under Ancelotti. The former Italian national team manager is the only person to coach in four Champions League finals, winning three. And the team he inherits is arguably better than the one Guardiola left when he jumped to Manchester City.
Back is Robert Lewandowski, who led the Bundesliga with 30 goals, and Thomas Mueller, who had 20. And though Mario Goetze and Medhi Benatia are gone, Munich added Portuguese teenager Renato Sanches and German national team defender Mats Hummels.
Borussia Dortmund, which has finished first or second in the Bundesliga five times since 2011, will be competitive again, strengthened by the addition of Goetze and Andre Schurrle, while Bayer Leverkusen, third in 2016, expects to have leading scorer Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez for a full season.
Fox, in its second season with the Bundesliga, will air approximately 200 regular-season games over four networks, beginning with Friday’s opener between Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen on FS1.
La Liga: Last season was the most successful for Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo. He won his second Champions League crown in three years, scored 51 goals in all competitions for his club, then won his first major international title with Portugal in the European Championships.
And that could have an impact on the La Liga season, which kicked off Friday with the brightest consolation of stars in the soccer universe. That’s because Ronaldo’s success will leave two-time defending champion Barcelona with a hungry team led by Lionel Messi, whose Argentina national team lost a second straight Copa America final on penalty kicks in June, and Uruguyan Luis Suarez, who had 63 goals and 23 assists for Barcelona but missed the Copa America with his national team because of injury.
The title chase likely will be a three-way race involving Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, which have shared the top three spots the past four seasons. No team outside that trio has won a league title since Valencia in 2004.
Real Madrid is the only one of the three that had a coaching change since last summer, sacking Rafael Benitez in January and replacing him with Zinedine Zidane, who lost just two of 27 games en route to the continental championship.
The U.S. rights to La Liga also belong to beIN Sports, which expects to show all 380 league matches.
Twitter: @kbaxter11
