The curtain fell on a fascinating La Liga season this past weekend with Barcelona crowned champions in triumphant style, but Madrid running them a close second. In fact, Real Madrid have earned more points this season than any team in La Liga history… except one… Barcelona 2009/10.

I know some people are fond of suggesting that the three 6th place finishes mean Aston Villa have not progressed, despite the year-on-year improvement in performance over the last 4 years, and love to repeat the meme about the need to spend big this summer. I wonder what they make of Madrid’s back to back second place finishes despite spending £150m on Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka last summer. Presumably Los Blancos just didn’t spend enough and the fact that they improved their 2008/09 performance by no less than 18 points does not show progress, their 2nd place finish means they’ve stood still?

Elsewhere around Spain on Sunday the real drama was in the ONO Estadi, home of Mallorca. The Balearic Islanders were hosting Espanyol with the aim of winning and hoping that Sevilla would fail to win in Almería, thereby leap frogging them into 4th place and obtaining that sweet, sweet Champions League place.

When the final whistle was blown, Mallorca had done their part; Casadesús and Suarez ensuring a 2-0 victory. The big screen in the ONO Estadi switched to the game still underway in Almería where the news was good: Sevilla were being held 2-2, but, crucially, were playing with 10 men since Álvaro Negredo was ejected in the 65th minute.

An eerie silence fell over the stadium as all eyes focused on the giant LCD screen at the far end. The players and coaching staff halted their celebrations – or at least muted them as much as they could manage – and sat on the turf, bewitched, but with a clear expectation that any moment they would hear the final whistle from 400 miles away and re-launch their jubilation.

The cameras in the stadium probably weren’t able to show the action on the big screen for contractual reasons, but the real interest, of the human variety, was in the ONO in any case. Ultimately, you didn’t need to see the big screen to know what happened, it was written all over the faces of every single person in that stadium. The barely controlled ecstasy turned to abject heartbreak in the blink of an eye as Rodrigo Ríos scored an injury time winner for Sevilla.

Talk about polar ends of the spectrum of emotion.

In reality, we were witnessing exactly what it meant to the players, staff and fans between getting a shot at qualifying for the Champions League and getting the same for the Europa League. The Tottenham players have been mocked for the celebrations at attaining 4th place by fans of other teams, but we all know that we would feel exactly the same in their position. Apparently it’s not an exclusively English sensation, but they have not had to endure the barrier of the quadopoly in Spain. Duopoly, yes. Quadopoly, no.

2010/11 Europa League

The connection to Aston Villa? As the leagues and domestic cups around the continent come to a close, we start to get an idea of who will be playing in the Europe next season, in which competition and at which stage they will join. We now know that Mallorca will join Villa and Man City in the Play Off – the final qualification stage – of the Europa League.

Among the other teams who also join the competition at the same stage, but unlikely opponents because of seeding, include : FC Porto, CSKA Moscow, PSV Eindhoven, Lille, Bayern Leverjusen, PSG, Brugge, Palermo, Lokomotiv Moscow, Feyenoord, Napoli and Borussia Dortmund.

Big teams joining in the 3rd round that we probably should expect to progress to the Play Off round, but again unlikely opponents due to seeding, include:- Liverpool, Juventus, Sporting Lisbon, Stuttgart and Galatasaray.

Add the Champions League throw backs into the group stage draw and the Europa League promises to be a tough and interesting competition again next season. I know that Martin O’Neill is planning on using the squad to the fullest extent in Europe next year, something I’m all for, but I really do hope that we get the mix right and progress significantly further than we have the last couple of seasons.

I’m looking forward to August 4th when the draws for the final qualifying rounds in the Champions and Europa Leagues will take place and we’ll find out who we face. The two legged tie itself will take place on August 19th and 26th. No repeat of Rapid Vienna this time please!

[Photo: Daylife]