La Liga of 100 minutes starts, many innovations in the 2023-2024 season

2023-08-12 17:34:09, Sport CNA

La Liga started last night with two meetings, as tonight it is Real Madrid's turn, while the reigning champion, Barcelona, ??will start its path towards defending the title on Sunday. A season that offers a lot of question marks for the Spanish giants.

Real Madrid saw Courtois and Benzema and waiting for Kilia Mbappe to challenge the champions. Atlético and "Colo" Simeone as an alternative to make the race for the trophy more interesting. The rest struggle to survive in a season marked by the salary cap and the clubs' financial difficulties. It is enough to look at the investment of only 300 million euros by the 20 teams of La Liga compared to the nearly 2 billion euros that the Premier League has spent and the difficulties of the vast majority of Spanish clubs to register new players.

Many signings are missing - "there will be departures before arrivals", they repeat in the clubs - and as September 1 comes, the closing date of the summer market, this weekend La Liga starts with some very significant news. Most importantly, it will probably be the fact that we will see 100-minute matches. Everything to not fix a defect of the Spanish championship, which remains the championship with the least effective game among the main European leagues with only 53 minutes and 36 seconds.

VAR was one of the big protagonists of last season and in this campaign the aim is to change this trend. "The last season has improved in terms of the refereeing team", said Medina Kantaleho. And for this reason, the football referees have met with the coaches to explain the changes in the regulations of the 2023-2024 season.

AN EXTRA MINUTE FOR EACH GOAL – “A minimum of one minute will be added to extra time. If the VAR goal checking takes two or three minutes, then it will be another two or three minutes. But if the VAR does not have to wait for the confirmation of the goal, what will be added at the end of each period is one minute for each of the scored goals", emphasized Klos Gomez. A decision made because a study conducted shows that this is the average time lost in goal celebrations, so this will be one more criterion to apply when adding up the time in each half. Matches with 100 minutes will be a reality.

THERE ARE NO "SOFT" PENALTY - So far in La Liga, many penalties have been awarded that are considered to be "soft". But in the new season this will change. The referees have been instructed that only those penalties where the contact is evident will be awarded.

LESS VAR MORE "JUDGES" - "When VAR intervenes too much, something happens", said Medina Kantaleho, who defended that "judges have a greater capacity to make decisions". In the same way, Klos Gomez was more open: "We need less VAR intervention, and not because VAR should reduce the level of intervention. We have to establish justice at the end of the game, but we ask that the referees make correct decisions and that the importance of the head of the refereeing team is seen."