20 million for Mathieu. I did not expect him to cost more than Rakitic.

They could have bought Benatia for around €30m......

Can Khedira stop getting injured?

JazzG wrote:

German FA confirm that Khedira has suffered an injury and will be out 4-6 weeks!

Barca confirm transfer fees, Suarez went for around £64m like reported here rather than the £75m that the scouse media were reporting! Can't believe they let Cesc go so cheap, could have played Man Utd off Chelsea and got more out of that. They seemed rather keen to get rid ASAP!

Was the extra £3.75 on vermaelen to cover his tube fare?

JazzG wrote:

German FA confirm that Khedira has suffered an injury and will be out 4-6 weeks!

Barca confirm transfer fees, Suarez went for around £64m like reported here rather than the £75m that the scouse media were reporting! Can't believe they let Cesc go so cheap, could have played Man Utd off Chelsea and got more out of that. They seemed rather keen to get rid ASAP!

Bravo and Ter stegen went for very good prices. Excellent business.

Captain wrote:

JazzG wrote:

German FA confirm that Khedira has suffered an injury and will be out 4-6 weeks!

Barca confirm transfer fees, Suarez went for around £64m like reported here rather than the £75m that the scouse media were reporting! Can't believe they let Cesc go so cheap, could have played Man Utd off Chelsea and got more out of that. They seemed rather keen to get rid ASAP!

Was the extra £3.75 on vermaelen to cover his tube fare?

Suspect that it's 3.75m because the Spanish papers did report something like that I think. 5m euros which are practically guaranteed and the 3.75m for trophies or something.

BBC did report it as 15m pounds too which would be very very close to 18.75m euro mark

Captain wrote:

Was the extra £3.75 on vermaelen to cover his tube fare?

His cab fare from the airport to Barca's training camp!

Atletico Madrid have sold 30 (thirty) tickets to their away derby against Real Madrid this weekend. It's a distance of about 8 km between Bernabeu and the Vicente Calderón Stadium.

No matter how bad things are in Premier League, one can always take comfort in the fact that the league isn't inherently broken the same way La Liga is.

That must be some kind of protest as that number is beyond ridiculous.
They are the defending league champions playing their local rivals, the reigning european champions.

They've only been given 250 seats, so the number would seem embarrassing even if they filled them.

It's just how things are in Spain. Ask yourself: would you pay £80 for an away derby ticket if you knew every single cent went straight into Tottenham's pockets?

The country is in a deep recession and travel is too expensive to be afforded by the working class, but the main crux has always been that they don't share the gate and matchday income. It's the same as their individual tv deals. Real Madrid and Barcelona each get around €150 million per season in broadcasting money. The five or six teams at the bottom of the table each get between €8-12 million. It's just impossible to bridge that gap, and so people don't spend hard-earned money on stuff that only benefits other teams. It's a sad state of affairs.

I was at an El Clasico in Barcelona a few years ago. A friend got us tickets in the away section. There were less than 300 domestic Real Madrid supporters, in a stadium that holds 100 000 people. That's how many could be bothered to travel to the biggest football derby on earth.

Klaus wrote:

...would you pay £80 for an away derby ticket if you knew every single cent went straight into Tottenham's pockets?

...

Is this low take-up rate unusual or have opposing teams to RM and Barca always done that?

So Sanchez only cost us £16.55m after Vermaelen and the £2.5m we got from Fabregas. That is pretty cheap.

Klaus wrote:

It's just how things are in Spain. Ask yourself: would you pay £80 for an away derby ticket if you knew every single cent went straight into Tottenham's pockets?

The country is in a deep recession and travel is too expensive to be afforded by the working class, but the main crux has always been that they don't share the gate and matchday income. It's the same as their individual tv deals. Real Madrid and Barcelona each get around €150 million per season in broadcasting money. The five or six teams at the bottom of the table each get between €8-12 million. It's just impossible to bridge that gap, and so people don't spend hard-earned money on stuff that only benefits other teams. It's a sad state of affairs.

I was at an El Clasico in Barcelona a few years ago. A friend got us tickets in the away section. There were less than 300 domestic Real Madrid supporters, in a stadium that holds 100 000 people. That's how many could be bothered to travel to the biggest football derby on earth.

It's much worse else where. Here are some graphics for you.

• Game with highest % seats filled

• Game with lowest % seats filled

I was talking specifically about away following, not average attendance.

That said, the numbers for both Ligue 1 and Serie A are shocking.

Serie A is hopeless. Last season Udinese brought 1 fan to an away match against Sampdoria. Even quite a good match like Milan vs Lazio opening the season at San Siro only had 44% of the seats filled.

You can sort of understand Milan though. They used to have this team:

Nowadays they have Abate, Mexes, Rami and de Jong.

That Milan team ffs. Unreal.

What is unreal is that team losing to the shittiest team to reach UCL final.

The Milan team from the early 90s was the one that was truly insane. Players like Baresi, Costacurta, Donadoni, Rijkaard,Albertini, Gullit, Maldini and van Basten. I was madly in love with that team, and Gullit was my first real hero. For me, it honestly could have gone either way when it came to becoming a proper fan back then. I am not really sure what it was about Arsenal that swung my that way, but no regrets.

Atletico have taken an early lead in the Madrid derby thanks to a Tiago header.

Lol Turan score in the Madrid derby, celebrates nonchalantly

Great to see Atletico Madrid continue their success.

7 yellow cards for Atletico, 4 against Real. Seems to have been a Simeone-style game.

Pablo Hernandez with what must surely be one of the goals of the season in Europe for Celta against Atletico.

Barcelona win 5-0 against Levante. Messi with a goal, two assists and one penalty miss. Barcelona still haven't conceded this season.

Atletico have eleven points after five games. They have scored one goal that wasn't from a set piece.

0 shots on target for Barca against Malaga tonight.

Were they that bad or did the strikers just have an off day?

Don't know how they do it, but Barcelona still haven't conceded this season. 22-0, Messi and Neymar fit eachother perfectly. Some are doubting how it will work with Suarez, but I think he'll just be a massive upgrade on Pedro.

La Liga is the new Eredivise, that's why.

Ronaldo with 15 goals in 8 matches. That's just insane.

Not insane. It's the new Eredivise

Spanish top teams are better than the English top teams. I'd also bet that the likes of Valencia and Bilbao would beat our lot at least as often as we can beat them.

C.Ronaldo and Messi's record in the CL is just as ridiculous as it is in La Liga. The assertion that the league is weak which is why their records are astonishing really doesn't hold true. C.Ronaldo scored 17 goals in 11 Champions League games last season.

Belittling the Spanish league is a typical narrative from fans of the English league, who can't really come to terms with the Spanish big two being on a level above everyone else. Truth is, our top teams feed off their scraps. We will also get our arses handed back to us on a platter.

Yes, I'm such a fan of the English league. Well done.

He's right though.

No, he's not.

I was referring to the fact that La Liga is more economically imbalanced than any other league on the planet. That's why Barca still haven't conceded a goal and that's why Real Madrid have scored 30 in 8 games. I didn't mention Ronaldo and I didn't mention Messi.

So La Liga only became economically imbalanced this season?