by Ryan D. Jaeger
Spanish football fans had a huge reason to celebrate on Sunday after Spain's national football squad defeated The Netherlands 1-0 to win the coveted 2010 World Cup in South Africa, thanks to many of its top
La Liga players.
Even though Spain didn't score as many goals in South Africa as fans expected, it did what it had to make it all the way through the tournament and come out at the other end smiling, and bearing the shiny gold World Cup trophy proudly.
The feat couldn't have come at a better time for a country dealing with a recession and a high unemployment rate. And once the excitement subsides, the upcoming
La Liga season will once again become the focus for Spanish football fans.
And it will not be lost on them that out of all the world's football premier leagues that fed players into their respective national football squads, none was ultimately more successful than La Liga, which contributed 19 out of 23 players.
Only David Silva, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fŕbregas and Pepe Reina play for English Premier League teams. Interestingly, all three of Spain's World Cup goalscorers - David Villa, Andrés Iniesta and Carles Puyol - play for Barcelona.
This was probably no coincidence considering that Barcelona came tops in the 2009/10 La Liga, beating out close rivals, Real Madrid. But despite Barcelona's champion status, it too has not escaped the country's economic problems.
Despite being one of the world's wealthiest football clubs, its newly appointed president Sandro Rosell confirmed recently that the club needs a sizable 150 million euro bank loan to take care of what he described as 'liquidity problems.'
So it will be interesting to see how Barcelona and its rivals fare in the 2010/2011 La Liga season.
