Here we are. The La Liga season has just started up, and now we get to watch the league with the world's three best players, its two best teams, and the saddest hodgepodge of patsies since Enter the Dragon. In spite of these financial realities, Spain managed to produce Europe's wildest title race last season, as well as a handful of second-tier teams playing some of the best soccer you could see outside of the Champions League. Will this year match up?

As Andr from Outkast once said, "we-we-well, yes and no." As is customary in Spain, the rich stay rich, the pretty good get poached and have to rely on the country's seemingly inexhaustable farm of young talent to step up, and the bad are, frankly, godawful.

The pros: Each of the top three teams spent stupid moneyby the end of the transfer window, it's likely that all three will have shelled out over 100 million bringing in new playerstrying to strengthen their squads. The world's most electric player of last season, Luis Surez, now (well, not exactly now) plays in Spain. The most electric player of this summer's World Cup, James Rodrguez, also joins the fun. Oh, and so does maybe the best player on the World Cup's winning team, Toni Kroos. This isn't a shootout. It's a goddamn nuclear war. The battle for the fourth Champions League spot will be similarly tenacious, with maybe five teams thinking they can make the continent's most prestigious competition should they play their cards right.

The cons: Does anyone really believe returning champs Atltico Madrid can challenge for the title again? They have spent oodles of Euros deepening their roster, and seeing how their new star-in-the-making Antoine Griezmann performs in a freer role alongside better teammates has me envisioning a "#TeamGrizi 2014-15 Skills and Goals" video so badass I don't even mute the dubstep in the background, but they are still losing their best player, Diego Costa, as well as a key defensive piece in Filipe Lus. And they did only win the league with the worst Bara in years and a Real Madrid completely focused on La Decima.

A little further down the table, the fourth-place contenders will have to cope with the usual summer-window raid on their talent. Griezmann goes to Atltico from Real Sociedad, Ivan Rakiti moved to Barcelona from Sevilla, Ander Herrera left Athletic Bilbao for Manchester United, and so on. Only Valencia can claim to have gotten stronger, thanks to the (probable?) completion of the long-rumored, still sort of hazy sale of the club to super rich guy Peter Lim. The rest of them will have to plug in some younger guys and count on their development, which, to be fair, is a pretty good bet when you're dealing with Spaniards.

But the very bottom is still fucking terrible. Actually, let's just start there.

This group of teams suuuuuuuuucks. If ever there was evidence that Spain has no business fielding 20 teams, this season is it. Real Madrid are going to send 5-plus goals past a few very talented teams this season, but running over tiny squads whose entire operating budget is less than Cristiano's weekly hair products expenses will be more slaughter than battle.

Case-in-point: Eibar and Crdoba. These two newly-promoted sides are as close to locks to get shoved right back down to the Segunda as there is in world soccer. There's basically no reason to even talk about their squads, save to mention that Eibar will trot out Derek Boateng, of the Boateng clan of super-athletes, and maybe Fiorentina loanee Ryder Matos can show for Crdoba why the young Brazilian attacker has been so hyped for years now.

Don't feel sorry for Eibar, though, whose run of consecutive promotions to reach the promised land has been nothing short of miraculous. They will undoubtedly enjoy every moment of their top-league experience, ass-whippings and all.

Read the original:
Ain't No Liga Like The One I Got: Your 2014-15 La Liga Preview

Travel Monday August 25, 2014 19:28

Bangkok--25 Aug--AirAsia

AirAsia, the worlds best low cost airline for 6 years running (2009-2014), as named by Skytraxs survey of over 18.9 million travellers worldwide, is back with its must-not-miss BIG SALE promotion to all Thai AirAsia, Thai AirAsia X and AirAsia Group destinations with 3 million promo seats made available for immediate booking.

The BIG SALE (net cost starts at 100THB) is available for booking from today until 31 August 2014, for travel from 1 March 24 October 2015.

The 0 THB seats are available for both domestic destinations such as Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phitsanulok, Krabi, Hat Yai, Khon Kaen, Sakon Nakhon, Udon Thani, including City Transfer and Island Transfer service such as Sukhothai, Pai, Samui, Tao Island and Lipe as well as international destinations including Singapore, Yangon, Siem Reap, Ho Chi Minh, Kunming, Guangzhou, Xian, Hong Kong, Macau, Bali and many more.

The BIG SALE promotion is available online at http://www.airasia.com and also via AirAsias mobile apps on iPhone, Android devices and the Blackberry 10, and also AirAsias mobile site at mobile.airasia.com.

Mr. Tassapon Bijleveld, CEO of Thai AirAsia, said, AirAsia is known as the peoples airline and coined the term Now Everyone Can Fly. Our legendary free seats promotion allows people to travel and discover new cities and places within our extensive network. We are thrilled to once again offer the promo seats to our guests with travel plans for next year. This is also our way of saying thank you for all the support for making us the leader in low cost travel and voting us the worlds best for six consecutive years.

As well, Thai AirAsia X, the leading low cost long haul carrier, is joining in on the promotion bonanza with fares starting at only 2,990 THB on the Bangkok-Seoul (Incheon) route and 3,490 THB for Bangkok-Osaka (Kansai) and Bangkok-Tokyo (Narita) with fares inclusive of airport tax. Bookings are available today-31 August 2014 for travel 1 March-24 October 2015.

AirAsiaGo, the holiday division of the worlds best low cost airline, is also offering BIG deals with savings up to 75% and return trip packages with accommodations (3 day 2 night) at the starting price of only 1,099 THB per person (tax included). Book today at http://www.airasiago.com.

The AirAsia BIG Loyalty Programme is also presenting a special campaign for AirAsia BIG card holders, or BIG Shots, during this period. BIG Shots are able to redeem Free Seats for 0 BIG Points while still accumulating BIG points. For information head to http://www.airasiabig.com.

Follow this link:
AirAsia BIG SALE promotion is back! 3 million promo seats up for grabs from now till 31 Aug 2014.