Spanish Inquisition: Transfer Talk & Culture Shock In La Liga

Already into the first few days of 2010 (where have the past ten years gone?) and the transfer market has remained relatively calm this winter in La Liga.

At the top, the 'Big Two' seem to have settled with their current squads as Barcelona and Real Madrid have both decided that, despite the African Cup of Nations - which has ruled out Barca’s Seydou Keita and Yaya Toure along with Madrid’s Mahamadou Diarra for the month of January - and Pepe’s season-ending injury, they have the depth and quality to compete at the level demanded of them. 

Seydou will be sorely missed

Some of La Liga’s other teams, however, have decided to dip into the treasury and shell out a few euros for some reinforcements. Before the Beckham law expired on January 1, 2010 (a statute named for the arrival of Becks to Madrid that enabled foreign players who joined Spanish clubs with a yearly wage greater than €600,000 a year, to enjoy a lowered tax rate of 24% on their income from the previous 43%), Valencia took advantage of 2009 by signing Alejandro ‘Chori’ Dominguez, Rubin Kazan’s star forward and Russia’s Footballer of the Year. Yet it was the towering frame of Nikola Zigic who gave Valencia their late victory on Saturday against Espanyol.

In Sevilla, defender Sergio Sanchez, a summer transfer who played exceptionally well for Los Nervionenses, has been diagnosed with a heart condition that has forced him to leave football indefinitely until further testing can be done to rule out risk to the player’s health. If Ruben de la Red is any measure as to how long such testing can take, Sevilla could well lament having permanently lost a very strong player both on the pitch and in the dressing room. While they have not done so yet, it is anticipated that the only change to be made to the Sevilla squad will be the addition of a defender to cover for Sanchez’s abrupt departure.

One team that have already begun making waves in the winter market is Atletico Madrid as coach Quique Sanchez Flores attempts to acquit himself of the shortcomings of Abel Resino’s old squad and create a team of his own. Already out is Florent Sinama-Pongolle while the unpolished Argentine gem German Pacheco has been recalled from his loan deal with Rayo Vallecano to try his hand with Los Colchoneros.

While Atletico were snubbed by Juventus left-back Cristian Molinaro who chose Stuttgart as his winter transfer choice, the arrivals of Argentinean international Eduardo Salvio (anticipated as the eventual replacement for Kun Aguero) and Juventus’ Portuguese midfielder Tiago look imminent.

Can Salvio salvage Atleti's campaign?

One particularly noteworthy observation is that most if not all of the signings coming into La Liga this winter are of Latin origin. With the arrival of Tiago pending (although the Portuguese language and culture are not too dissimilar to the Spanish language/culture), a great number of completed transfers and potential transfers into La Liga involve players who already speak Spanish.

It is difficult to simply shrug this point into the realm of coincidence or happenstance as native players from the English, German, Dutch, Turkish even Italian leagues (with the exception of Molinaro who ended up opting out of the opportunity to play in Spain) have remained distant from the Liga transfer talk.

Coming into La Liga is a bit different from entering into other leagues. Principally, there is the logistical difficulty of adapting to a team that has already been in formation for four months. For the big spenders, the season seems to be going as prescribed (if you recall last season at this point, Barca held a 12-point margin over Real Madrid, which forced Los Blancos into acquiring Lassana Diarra and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar) so the expensive foreign superstars have been, pending a(nother) debilitating injury, discounted.

Remember me?

For the other teams in Spain's top flight, the best chance for quick fixes and adjustments in the squad come with a shorter time required for players to adapt to a new team and signing players who have played in leagues with a similar flair and style to La Liga’s like the South American or Portuguese leagues.

Another change - and perhaps the more difficult one - that foreign players (that is to say players not of Latin origin) must make is adjusting to life in Spain itself.

Arriving into the world of Spanish football is unlike any other experience in the sport as the country’s many cultures and political ideologies are inexorably linked to each region’s football club. When entering a club like Atletico, Deportivo La Coruna, Valencia, etc., one does more than join a football club. One joins a culture of regional pride, political conviction, and historic tradition.

Even routines as basic as the daily meal structure in Spain differ from the conventional Anglo-Saxon breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as on the Iberian Peninsula, lunch is the largest meal of the day, consisting of a heavy, three-course meal that typically requires a siesta (afternoon rest) afterward while ‘dinner’ comprises of a variety of relatively small bites to munch on in the form of tapas or pinchos.

But the greatest barrier to integration that a foreign player faces is language. Spaniards especially, hold a strong identity with language. In fact, Madrid locals have been reputed to put Parisian snobbery to shame with their insistence upon exercising the local tongue. In regions such as the Basque country, Valencia, Catalunya, and Galicia, language is even more important to the local population and while everyone knows Athletic Bilbao’s exclusive policy of signing only Basque players, for other regions it has become obligatory to learn more of the language than the required ¡Amunt Valencia!, ¡Forza Depor!, ¡Visca Barca! or ¡Hala Madrid!. 

At Zaragoza, Jermaine Pennant still needs an interpreter present with him at training to understand the coach’s orders and even has the interpreter run laps with the team so he can understand some of the team jokes. After an initially unsettling period in Madrid, Karim Benzema’s improvement in form came along with his comfort with the Spanish language as he became more at ease in training as well as with his team-mates and resultantly, more at ease on the pitch.

So as 2010 begins and La Liga’s teams assess their squads in the January transfer window, it seems that the preferable signatures are coming from Brazil, Argentina, and Portugal so to make for a more integrated and thus more competitive squad as the second half of the Spanish season begins to heat up. To those players joining our favourite teams for the second assault: Bienvenido a la liga [Welcome to La Liga], truly the best football league on offer in the world.

Cyrus C. Malek, Goal.com