STAR FOOTBALL PREVIEW: La Liga 2025/26

🇪🇸 ALL KICKING OFF – LA LIGA As part of our build-up to the new football season, we preview the new La Liga campaign with WILLIAM KEDJANYI, including three recommended starsports.bet selections!

---

🇪🇸 🏆 Fight For The Title

Glory in Spain belonged to Barcelona last season, who took a league and cup double to atone for a painful Champions League defeat to Inter Milan at the semi-final stage, and neutral fans could be in for a cracking title race between them and potentially both Madrid clubs.

Hansi Flick led the Catalans to a thrilling title win, scoring a remarkable 102 goals last summer, and they set the standard although Madrid have brought in Xabi Alonso and invested in their defence, and Atletico Madrid have once again spent heavily to back Diego Simeone.

For Barcelona, the plan is simple – more of the same, with Joan Garcia arriving as injury cover for Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s medical report and Marcus Rashford, albeit still unregistered, joining on loan. A forward and midfield squad that includes Lamine Yamal, Ferran Torres, Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski, Gavi, Pedri, Frenkie De Jong, and Dani Olmo is the envy of most sides in Europe, let alone Spain and whilst their financial problems are by no means a thing of the past, it didn’t stop them last year. Hansi Flick will have to deal with a low block more this year – the Champions League exit to Inter showed a blueprint for how to stop them, although it was an extremely narrow game against the Serie A Champions – but he has the technical skills to cope with it.

Real Madrid are marginal favourites, having made some big additions over the summer. Xabi Alonso’s arrival may be the most important addition they’ve made, with their new coach, aided by the arrivals of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dean Huijsen Alvaro Carreras and and Argentine playmaker Franco Mastantuono from River Plate.

Alexander Arnold and Mastantuono will help to fill the gaps left by departing legends Toni Kroos and Luka Modric in the midfield and they are stacked in midfield and going forward with Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde, and Aurelien Tchouameni in the middle of the park, whilst Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr., and Rodrygo is one of the very best forward lines. Alonso’s challenge will be making things all fit – a 4-0 defeat by PSG at the Club World Cup shows the work he has to do there, but if things all fall into place, not much improvement would be needed to catch Barcelona.

Atletico Madrid were trading much shorter than the 10/1 on offer with starsports.bet in February of last season, but a rare month failure – in March they played Barcelona twice, Real Madrid twice, Getafe and Espanyol, with just one win from those games that saw them exit the Champions League on penalties – and the season was effectively gone.

They have doubled down in the transfer market as there’s been an overhaul of the squad – striker Giacomo Raspadori, playmaker Álex Baena, defender Dávid Hancko, midfielders Johnny Cardoso and Thiago Almada, and fullbacks Matteo Ruggeri and Marc Pubill are in, whilst Rodrigo De Paul, Ángel Correa, Axel Witsel, César Azpilicueta, Reinildo, Samuel Lino, Rodrigo Riquelme, Saúl Ñíguez and Thomas Lemar are all on their way out.

They should be once again the best of the rest and are not that far away from matching the big two, although their head-to-head record against them needs to improve if they’re to make the final leap. At 10/1 they are definitely overpriced for the title, although there is precious little margin for error.

---

4️⃣ Top Four Finish

Athletic Bilbao and Villarreal picked off the last two Champions League places, with Bilbao beating Villarreal to fourth on goal difference. That pair can be expected to go well again if they can handle the rigours of the extended Champions League campaign, something that Bilbao will be reasonably well prepared for, having managed an emotional run to the semi-finals of the Europa League (final was held at their home stadium, the San Mames).

European competition will be a new experience for Villarreal, who didn’t play in any European competition for the first time since the 2019–20 season, due to their eighth-place league finish in the previous campaign, and they’ve also lost the considerable talents of Alex Baena and Thierno Barry.

Athletic, meanwhile, have kept star signing Nico Williams and start with largely the same squad that they had last season, which isn’t often the case for Ernesto Valverde’s side, and that continuity could give them the key edge in the top four race. Bilbao and Villarreal were 10 points clear of the rest from the last campaign, and the chasing pack have all lost key players.

Real Betis have lost Johnny Cardozo to Atletico and Jesus Rodriguez to Como, and are yet to resecure Antony after his very successful loan spell at the end of last season. Celta Vigo were even further behind and now will have to balance domestic duties with a Europa League campaign, whilst rescuing Borja Iglesias is their big attacking signing, with him and Iago Aspas carrying them going forward. All those sides will do well to come closer to Bilbao and Villarreal, with Bilbao making much more appeal of that pair.

---

⚽️ Top Scorer

We can expect last season’s top scorer Kylian Mbappe (31 goals) and Robert Lewandowski to dominate proceedings. A strong case can be made for both and the prices look about right, but over a 38-game season there’s surely more value to be had with four each/way places, and Alexander Sorloth should give each/way backers a good run for their money with starsports.bet.

He took fourth place in the standings last season in his debut campaign for Atletico and can be expected to play just as big a role this time around. He managed to outperform his xG rating (17.0) and as one of the two big forward options at Atletico Madrid another strong showing can be expected.

Raphina had a remarkable season for Barcelona last season and whilst Hansi Flick’s side will do well to score 102 goals again, they look sure to create plent,y and it’s not impossible that he matches or betters his tally of 18 league goals.

With Robert Lewandowski now 35, he may take an even bigger role going forward. Marcus Rashford’s arrival does increase competition, but Raphinha should be involved with everything Barca does and can also go well.

⭐ STAR MARKET ON LA LIGA ⭐
⚽ ALL KICKING OFF – PREVIEWS ⚽

---

RECOMMENDED BETS
BACK Athletic Bilbao Top 4 Finish 5pts at 13/8 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)
BACK Alexander Sorloth Top Goalscorer 1pt each/way at 9/1 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)
BACK Raphina Top Goalscorer 1pt each/way at 10/1 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

---

PROFIT/LOSS (AUG 2025): -8.75 points

---

STAR PROMOTIONS