This Friday a new season of the League begins with notable novelties that will extend the duration of the matches and that seek to reduce the controversies over the signaling of penalties. The extension of the matches already became effective in the World Cup in Qatar.

Luis Medina Cantalejo, president of the National Committee of Referees, has announced that another interesting novelty refers to the signaling of penalties. From now on, “low intensity contacts” will no longer be whistled, the so-called penalties. Hands inside the area that “block shots that do not imply expulsion or an obvious goal opportunity” will not be penalized with a yellow card either.

With these novelties, the aim is to reduce criticism for lack of unification of criteria and reduce VAR calls. “When the VAR intervenes a lot, something happens,” said Medina Cantalejo in a recent meeting with the referees at the headquarters of the Asturian Football Federation. In that act, Clos Gómez (director of the VAR Project) indicated that interventions from the video arbitration room went from 143, in the 2021-22 season, to 179 last season. He also assured that a large part of them were in actions that meant a red card, since they went from 13 to 38.

favor the show

Football is pursued faster, more spectacular and with more goals. Arsene Wegner, former coach and currently FIFA development director, has put several ideas on the table to promote scoring chances. The most notable, and which FIFA will test this year in the lower categories of Sweden (men's under'21 and women's under'19), is the change in the offside. Offside will only be signaled when the attacker's body is completely in front of the last defender, in order to avoid throwing strange lines to analyze the position of the players. It is about modifying article 11.2 of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which dictated that there will be offside simply by having “any party […] closer to the opponent's goal line than the ball and the penultimate opponent ».

“If this leads to a more attractive football as established by FIFA's vision…. There will be more goals, it will be fun to watch,” said Jonas Eriksson, international referee.

Wenger also proposes that corners be valid even if the ball flies out of bounds and that throw-ins can be done with the foot instead of with the hand. Modifications that will take time to adapt, if they are finally approved.

Some innovations that come this season to a sport that is not very prone to changes. For many, the football regulations are perfect. Johan Cruyff said that football “had to be a show”. The bodies that regulate it pursue that purpose but, as Augusto César Lendoiro, former president of Deportivo de la Coruña, says, “it costs a world to achieve it”. For the Galician manager, football is already a show, but it needs tweaking. In fact, the decision that was made in 1992 stands out, when the rule of transfer to the goalkeeper was introduced. A decision that was the result of the sad spectacle that occurred in the Italy'90 World Cup, with several teams wasting many minutes, passing the ball between the defenders and the goalkeeper.

“That change was fundamental, that was a joke,” says the former president. Paco Buyo, the former Real Madrid goalkeeper adds: “I loved it because he played outside the area with his feet and had good vision of the game.”

Since then, few changes have been adopted by the IFAB, an institution made up of eight members. The modifications must be approved with six votes in favour, which does not make it an easy majority.

Slowdown

One of the innovations of the last few years has been the arrival of the VAR, a tool that has caused more loss of time due to the review of the plays. “The VAR is an element that slows down football, but gives it a touch of justice. “I think that all the regulations are made to speed up the game and the assignment was made to avoid wasting time,” says Buyo.. Preventing it from getting lost is the obsession of many, but also the advantage of a few. The main claim of Lendoiro, and who has recently adopted Xavi Hernández, is changing the football to effective time. Currently, LaLiga is, together with Serie A, the competition in which the least time is played with 53.2 minutes (data from 2022) while Ligue 1 and the Premier, with 56.3 and 55, respectively, are the they have more minutes.

Lendoiro proposes two times of 30 minutes to “avoid controversy, loss of time and remove responsibility from the referee when determining the end of the game”. “I think that soccer is the only sport without effective time. Don't we put fairplay in UEFA? Well, with this, the cheating would end,” said Xavi.

Another great claim made by a Spanish League coach is Simeone's request to eliminate overtime to go directly to penalties. The Argentine wants to reduce players' minutes in an increasingly demanding calendar. But FIFA, for the moment, has only allowed the five changes, a solution that seemed temporary due to the pandemic, but which has ended up becoming definitive.

We are only one day away from the start of the first day of LaLiga and the problem with the registration of players is causing a very tense end to the preseason for some teams, since entities such as Alavés or Barcelona have more than 10 players who still They have not been able to be registered in the competition before it starts.

Before, those teams that violated the LaLiga financial fair play agreement and entered a more restrictive phase and the 1/4 rule was applied to them, which implies that in order to spend on staff they have to enter more money than normal. To achieve this, they had to decapitalize, that is, sell many players or players of great value, because only then could they generate the significant 25% that can be applied to staff expenses.

The pandemic has affected Spanish teams in this regard, although LaLiga changed the regulations to make losses more bearable during the period of low income caused by the health crisis, the entities lost various sources of this income and also some of these teams had with making sales of important players, but they were never able to carry out these transactions, and their accounts were unbalanced.

“You have to reflect on whether the start of the competition should coincide with the end of the market, because now we are all going to lose out with what is going to happen to Spanish football this weekend”. These are statements by Víctor Orta, Sevilla's sports director, who this Tuesday at a press conference assumed that these are rules that must be followed and Sevilla will be one of the teams that will not be able to register all their players before the start of the championship. , although in the last hours they have been able to improve their situation.

Everything exemplified here is collected and developed by La Liga in its budgeting regulations.

The norm of 40%, now 50% (or 60%)

To this day, the teams that are not being able to register their players are those that violate the rules established by LaLiga, chaired by Javier Tebas, which are more restrictive than those applied by UEFA in their competitions.. Here, the clubs that are affected by the financial fair play regulations of LaLiga have to have a positive cash register and meet the maximum expense established, if a team fails to comply with that rule, that is when this restriction is imposed, which At one time it changed to 40% to improve the fluidity of the market and the sustainability of the clubs.

This change meant that of each salary that the staff of the affected clubs left, only 40% of it could be used for new registrations. This measure improves the funds available to the teams, yes, but even so it is a change that some entities consider that it will not make much difference.

For this reason, the competition's board of directors established that from the end of June of this summer and temporarily during the summer period, this percentage is improved to 50% and it is still expandable if the sale is of a player with a large salary. , since if its sale supposes the release of a percentage equal to or greater than 5% of the Cost of the Sports Squad (CDP), 60% of the benefits may be used to apply them to staff expenses.

The president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas GUILLERMO MARTÍNEZ THE WORLD

At 8:25 p.m. on Thursday, August 10, the registration data for the first division teams is as follows:

Alaves

Some air for Luis García's team after the registrations of Nikola Maras and Antonio Blanco, but it continues to be one of the teams that is having the worst time since it has only been able to register 14 players.

Almeria

Trans to register Dion Lopi, they have 21 players on the squad to play in the competition.

Athletic

It has 23 registered players. Without problems for Ernesto Valverde's team, they will be able to count on their entire squad for their first game against Real Madrid this Saturday.

Athletic

The club from the capital keeps everything in order as it has 25 players registered in the La Liga database.

Barcelona

The Blaugrana club has only 13 registered players and among them are Kessié and Dembélé who are players whose departure from the club is probable.

Iñaki Peña, Ronald Araujo, Sergi Roberto, Alejandro Balde, Marcos Alonso and Abde have yet to register.

In addition, the three signings they have made are also missing: Oriol Romeu, Íñigo Martínez and Gündogan, the latter has a clause that allows him to leave if he is not registered in La Liga.

The signings of Barcelona Oriol Romeu, Ilkay Gündogan and Íñigo Martínez QUIQUE GARCÍA EFE Celta

After the registration of Manu Sánchez, he already has 18 players, they only need to register Unai Núñez.

Cadiz

Guardiola, Meré, Osmajic and Pires remain to register. Even so, there are already 23 players that the Cádiz team has registered.

Getafe

José Bordalás's team has 19 players available for the clash in their first game of the season against Barcelona. They highlight the lack of registrations of players such as Omar Alderete, Jonathan Silva and Damián Suárez.

Girona

With 19 registered players, they are missing players like Dovbyk (the most expensive signing in the club's history), Pau Víctor, Yangel and Gazzaniga.

Grenade

After registering Ricard Sánchez, the Andalusian team has 21 players for its return to the first division.

the palms

It has 22 players on the squad after the registrations of Escandell and Sinkgraven.

Majorca

Larin and Van der Heyden have already been registered, so the Mallorcan club has 20 players on the squad.

Osasuna

They already have 22 players on the squad after processing Mojica's registration

Presentation of Johan Mojica J. P. URDÍROZ EFE Lightning

With only one goalkeeper on the squad, the Vallecas team has 21 registered players, including the three signings.

real Madrid

All registered signings and a total of 24 players on the squad.

Real Betis

With 18 players officially on the squad for La Liga, Manuel Pellegrini's team has not been able to register their new signings, Ayoze, Marc Roca, Bellerín, Bartra, Isco and Chadi Riad.

Real society

23 registered players and like Rayo, only 1 goalkeeper, although the new signing André Silva is not there either.

Seville

The sports director Víctor Orta himself has complained today about the difficulty in registering players, even so, there are already 23 players available for the team.

Presentation of Djibril Sow CRISTINA QUICLER AFP Valencia

The team from the capital of the Valencian Community already has 21 players registered in the championship.

villarreal

22 players that Quique Setién has at his disposal although Ilias Akhomach has yet to register.

Andrés Iniesta, a former footballer for FC Barcelona and the Spanish team, signed his contract this Wednesday with his new team, Emirates FC, where at 39 he could end his career as a footballer after leaving Japan last July.

“It's a new stage in my career, very important after the long time I spent at Barcelona and then in Japan,” Iniesta declared during the official presentation with his new club.

“I am here to write a new page and I will do everything I can to get the best results with my team,” he promised.. “I've always given my all with Barcelona and with Vissel Kobe, and I'll do the same here,” said the player who will wear the number 8 shirt.

The Spanish player announced his departure from Vissel Kobe in May, and despite the fact that his contract there ended at the end of the year, the man from La Mancha wanted a new destination since he spent a lot of time on the bench last season.

an enviable track record

It should be remembered that Iniesta joined Vissel Kobe in 2018 after spending 16 years at Barcelona, the club where he became known and with which he won everything, including the Champions League four times and the Spanish League nine times.

The player from La Mancha was also part of the most glorious stage of the Spanish team, in which he chained titles with the 2008 Euro Cup, the 2010 World Cup, in which he scored the winning goal, and the 2012 Euro Cup.

With Vissel Kobe, Iniesta won the Emperor's Cup in 2019 and the Japan Super Cup in 2020. He led the team to the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League that year.. However, the continuation was less glorious and the club had a difficult final season, battling relegation and frequent manager changes.

The former Barça player played his last game with Vissel Kobe on July 1, playing 57 minutes in the 1-1 draw against Consadole Sapporo, in a J-League game.

Since then his future aroused interest and there was speculation that he might join Inter Miami to play again alongside Lionel Messi, but nevertheless he decided to accept the Emirati offer.

Franck Kessié is already one of the footballers who have changed Europe for Saudi Arabia. The player, who arrived at the Camp Nou last year after being proclaimed champion of the Italian league with Milan and with the letter of freedom under his arm, has been transferred to Al-Ahli for 12.5 million euros, as confirmed the Barcelona entity itself through a statement.

The midfielder, in fact, no longer took part this Tuesday in the traditional Barça debut within the framework of the Joan Gamper trophy. An event that also lacked an Ousmane Dembélé who, according to Mateu Alemany assured after the game, even traveled to Paris to finish finalizing an arrival at PSG that, despite the fact that it is clearly already done, has not yet finished. all.

Kessié, in fact, was one of the Barça players who has had the transferable sign on throughout the summer and, despite the fact that Juventus, for example, had shown great interest in taking over his services, finally He has chosen to follow the same path taken by players like Cristiano Ronaldo or Karim Benzema to join the Saudi league.

Throughout his only season as a Barcelona fan, the Ivorian, who will turn 27 next December, did not have as many opportunities as he expected. In total, he played 43 games and scored only three goals, although one of them was terribly momentous for the Catalans: the 2-1 win against Real Madrid in the last league classic that allowed Barça to open a practically insurmountable gap in the fight for the title.

It is unusual for a five-year-old girl to be clear about what she wants to do, but Cata Coll (Pórtol, Balearic Islands, 2001) knew it very well, her passion was football. “She started in the village, with her friends from school. I was determined that I wanted to play football. We took her to play basketball, but she didn't like it,” says her father, Fernando Coll, to EL MUNDO.

Who was going to tell that girl that a few years later she would be playing her first World Cup with the senior team and that she would start? She herself did not imagine it, but the dream has come true and in the early hours of Thursday to Friday she will continue against the Netherlands (3:00 am, TVE), with the quarterfinal match, which the Spanish team will play for the first time.

The Balearic soccer player was the great novelty in Jorge Vilda's eleven for the round of 16 match against Switzerland. Throughout the group stage, the starting goalkeeper had been Misa Rodríguez, but in the first round the coach gave Cata the opportunity, to the surprise of everyone, or, well, almost everyone. Mario Cabanes, who was one of her coaches in the Balearic team, points to this newspaper: “I told her that I was going to play, that I would end up being a starter and she replied that 'I wish, but I have it very difficult'. And the other day, when he debuted, I wrote him again and warned him 'I told you, Cata'”.

From substitute to starter

She knew that it was very difficult for her to play, and that she was coming to the tournament as a substitute goalkeeper, but Mario, who knows her so well, is sure that the Spaniard “has not stopped fighting and showing in every training session that she wants to play.”. It should be noted that it is not the first time that the player has come to a tournament knowing that she will not be a starter and in the end she manages to surprise. Chus Tamurejo, director of the Football Federation of the Balearic Islands affirms: “Cata already experienced this situation in the 2018 U20 World Cup, she had two goalkeepers above. She was very young, she was sub'17 and, who would have thought that at that moment Pedro López was going to summon her and that later she was going to be a starter in all the games?

To get here, Cata has not stopped working since she started in this sport, demonstrating her passion for her work.. In its beginnings it was central, but it was always anxious to experience what was lived under sticks. Her father recalls that in her early days, at Sporting Sant Marçal, “she was lucky enough to be coached by Ernesto Varga, Pinocchio. He was the first goalkeeper coach she had and the one who instilled her competitive character.”

Fernando also does not forget the work of Pablo Roca's school and the importance it had in the formation of his daughter. “Pablo began to train her at the age of 12 and from the age of 14 he prepared a specific plan for her in which he left the imprint of his competitive character and goalkeeper technique,” says the goalkeeper's father.

I was going to be a professional player

Those who know her say they knew she was going to dedicate herself to soccer professionally.. “We knew that she was going to be a player because she looked. In other notes that have quality, but they live it more relaxed, maybe they can't with that pressure or they don't want to leave the island and Cata was clear that she wanted to play sports”, reveals Chus.

The same opinion is shared by Mario, who acknowledges that “from a very young age we already saw confidence, reflexes and a goalkeeper's pose, that the people who have been in football for many years already said that this girl could reach the top of the football and that's how it is.”

Cata Coll's palmares is remarkable. The Balearic Islander already knows what it is to be a World Champion, she achieved it with the sub'17. With the same team he managed to raise a European. All this with 22 years. Definitely a dream. One that has now been completed with his participation in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

But Cata is much more than an excellent footballer. Mario Cabanes says that off the pitch he is very outgoing. “Cata is a fun person, who makes you laugh, who makes jokes, who is the first to help you, to propose things, to pull the classmates and encourage them,” he says. She is also very close with her family, especially with her father, the first one she called as soon as she found out she was going to be a starter, even though it was five in the morning in Spain.. “When you see your daughter's name on the phone, you get scared and you answer by asking what happened? he was very lucky because just as his daughter was playing her first match, he and his family had returned from New Zealand. Even so, this morning Fernando will be glued to the television and the phone waiting for his daughter's call to confirm if he is the owner again.