Why are Barcelona and Real Madrid not playing in La Liga’s opening weekend?
La Liga is back this weekend, but not quite as you know it.
Six games are being played across the opening matchday — but the Spanish top flight’s two biggest clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid, will not be in action.
Allow us to explain…
Who is playing in the opening La Liga weekend and who is not?
The opening game is Deportivo Alaves v Getafe today (Saturday) at 7.30pm local time (6.30pm UK, 1.30pm ET), with Sevilla hosting Rayo Vallecano later that evening.
Racing Santander will make their La Liga return on Sunday when Villarreal travel to their El Sardinero home ground, while Espanyol play Levante that day. Another historic club back in the division, Deportivo La Coruna, welcome Elche on Monday, before Atletico Madrid face second-division play-off winners Malaga on Wednesday.
Racing Santander made an emotional return to La Liga (Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
Four matches from the opening gameweek have been pushed back to late August due to an agreement between La Liga and Spain’s players’ union, the AFE, which includes a mandatory break for all players whose international teams reached the World Cup semi-finals.
Spain reaching and winning the final against Argentina on July 19 means players such as Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal and Real Madrid’s Marc Cucurella will not have games until at least the second weekend of the season.
When do Barcelona and Real Madrid actually start their seasons?
La Liga champions Barcelona begin the defence of their crown at Elche on Sunday, August 23, allowing the eight Barca players in Spain’s World Cup-winning squad more time to recover.
Jose Mourinho’s first game of his second spell as Madrid manager will be at Espanyol on Saturday, August 22.
What were supposed to be the Clasico duo’s first matches are now being played towards the end of the month — with Barca hosting Bilbao’s Athletic Club at the Camp Nou on Thursday, August 27, and Madrid taking on Real Sociedad at the Bernabeu on Wednesday, August 26.
Barcelona contributed eight players to Spain’s World Cup-winning squad (Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images)
Many top players involved in the World Cup have only returned to training in recent days — Yamal, Pedri, Dani Olmo and Pau Cubarsi had their first training session back at Barca on Wednesday.
The situation is similar in the capital. Cucurella was not involved in Madrid’s 1-0 friendly win against Deportivo La Coruna on Wednesday night, and nor were World Cup semi-finalists with England and France Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe and Aurelien Tchouameni, whose national teams were involved in the third-place play-off the day before the final.
When was this agreed and by who?
La Liga were firm in their stance that they wanted the 2025-26 season to start on August 15 — even though other top leagues around Europe are starting later this season. The Premier League kicks off on the following weekend of August 21, while Germany’s Bundesliga starts on August 28.
Spain’s players union AFE objected to the mid-August start, as players whose countries went deep into the World Cup would be denied the mandated time for both rest and pre-season within Spanish football’s government-sanctioned collective bargaining agreement.
Following months of debate, a proposal to ‘split’ the opening gameweek was unanimously agreed by La Liga’s club representatives on June 9, while the season calendar was approved at the Spanish football federation’s annual assembly on June 30 — although Madrid did not send representatives to either of these meetings.
The solution gave clubs whose players had reached the semi-finals of the World Cup the option to push their opening games back 10 days.
The staggered start to the campaign means that there will be La Liga fixtures played on all but one day between August 15 and 31.
Spreading the games so widely also helps with scheduling, as high temperatures in many Spanish cities during August mean evening kick-offs are necessary for health and safety reasons.
What about Atletico Madrid’s situation?
Atletico Madrid had more players than any other club taking part in the World Cup final, four with Spain (Alex Baena, summer signing Alejandro Grimaldo, Marcos Llorente and Marc Pubill) and five with Argentina (Julian Alvarez, Giuliano Simeone, goalkeeper Juan Musso, Nahuel Molina and Thiago Almada — although the latter two have since joined other clubs).
Julian Alvarez returned to Atletico Madrid training this week (Dennis Agyeman/Europa Press via Getty Images)
La Liga would have allowed Atletico’s opening game against Malaga to also have been pushed back to late August, but Canadian artist The Weeknd is set to play concerts at their Metropolitano stadium on the 28th, 29th and 30th of the month.
So Diego Simeone’s team will host Malaga on Wednesday. It remains to be seen if World Cup winners including Llorente and Baena will feature given they only returned to training seven days before their club season begins.
Argentina star Alvarez’s situation is also unclear, as a transfer saga with Barcelona rumbles on, although Atletico’s hierarchy continue to insist he is not for sale.
What about the rest of the clubs?
Real Betis midfielder Giovani Lo Celso was part of the Argentina squad that reached the World Cup final, so Betis’ game at Valencia has also been moved back to Tuesday, August 25.
Although Celta Vigo also had striker Borja Iglesias with Spain, the Galician club were set to kick off at home to Osasuna on the opening weekend.
But a disease affecting the turf at Vigo’s Estadio Balaidos has made the pitch unplayable for this weekend, so on Thursday La Liga announced that game was being pushed back to Thursday, August 27.
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