La Liga Heads into 2017: It's a Big Year For...

After a break over the Christmas period to recharge the batteries, Spanish football returns this weekend as La Liga heads in 2017. As ever, the new year brings with it new challenges and new opportunities for all, some with more on the line than others. Here, we look at a selection of teams and individuals for whom 2017 is a big year. 

Valencia

There was a tree, fairy lights and a smattering of decorations, but this was no merry message. "2016 has been a difficult year," Valencia chairwoman Layhoon Chan said in a video posted on the club's official website on Christmas Eve, "and I will like to apologize to our fans for a bad season."

As with everything Valencia do right now, it didn't have the desired effect. In fairness to Chan, it shouldn't have been her making an apology but instead owner Peter Lim. But even if Lim had asked for forgiveness, Valencia fans wouldn't have shown him any. 

On Tuesday, thousands of fans outside Mestalla called for Lim's head, their chant all too familiar: "Vete ya," or "go now!" And that was before Valencia were thrashed 4-1 at home by Celta Vigo in the Copa del Rey, a game in which they were 3-0 down inside 20 minutes having been an utter mess—as always. 

With every passing week, Valencia's situation grows more dire, the crisis deepening. On December 30, Cesare Prandelli became the fourth manager to depart Mestalla in little over a year. If you count Voro's bouts as interim boss, of which he's now onto his third, Valencia have had seven different managerial stints in 13 months. 

But Prandelli was different to those who'd gone before him. Instead of getting the axe, he walked. He walked, he said to La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t ESPN FC), because Lim promised him one thing and delivered another when it came to a transfer budget; because he saw a fractured squad either unable or unwilling to compete; because he saw all tunnel and no light; because Valencia have broken themselves in half. 

The atmosphere at Mestalla is toxic, but that's a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. The club has a squad that's unbalanced and devoid of belief. At an organisational level, there's no direction, the owner is absent, reckless spending has backed them into a corner with financial fair play, key players must be sold, revenues are falling, there's no shirt sponsor and a half-built stadium remains. 

Eighteen months ago, this was an exciting project, a club on the move. In 2017, Valencia is a club staring at relegation and a journey to extinction if they can't turn it all around. 

Atletico's Leaders: Simeone and Griezmann

One of football's key concepts is that of identity. Beyond talent, players, strategies and systems, a footballing identity is about knowing who you are and what you're about, a collective sense of self. No one in recent seasons has better represented that than Atletico Madrid, but it feels as though that's now changing. 

Enduring their worst start to a season under Diego Simeone, Atleti have taken on the look of a team that aren't exactly sure of who they are now, of what they've become.

A shift toward a more dynamic approach has been more complicated than first thought. The defence has suffered, and that robust structure has wavered. Simeone's men have looked caught at an awkward halfway point between their old selves and an envisaged attacking nirvana. 

It's left behind the feeling that the Simeone era at the Vicente Calderon is slowing down, that Atleti have reached the beginning of the end in a sense. It's as though the loss to Real Madrid in Milan has given them a hangover they can't quite shake. Simeone's negotiation of a reduction in his contract and admission to Mediaset (via ESPN FC) that he'll one day manage Inter Milan have heightened the sensations, too. 

But Simeone has insisted that he's not going anywhere soon. Antoine Griezmann has done the same.

"I don't like that question," the Frenchman told AS when asked about the conjecture over his future. "I'm perfectly happy at Atletico and enjoying myself where I am. Please don't ask me about my future anymore."

Griezmann, though, continues to be asked because his future has always felt linked with his manager's. If Simeone were to depart, you'd imagine Atleti's biggest star would, too. But if they're sticking around, the coming 12 months are big for both men.

Though Atletico are probably out of the title race in La Liga already, this is a club preparing to make one of the biggest moves in its history by upping sticks and relocating to a new stadium on the other side of the city. 

Beyond the Champions League, the remainder of this season for Atleti is about determining what collective mood they head to the new stadium in. Will they go there as a club on the march, ready to take the step forward they hope it will be? Or will they go there not sure of who they are, slowing down, possessing uncertainty in that identity that was once so strong?

The club's leaders in Simeone and Griezmann are the men who will determine that. 

Florentino Perez

Florentino Perez is suitably chuffed. "We will not forget 2016, as it is a year in which we have won three international titles," the Real Madrid president said just before Christmas. "Real Madrid are currently going through one of the best moments in our 114-year history."

At the helm of a club that is now soaring on the pitch—not just off it—Perez is justified in saying that. Under Zinedine Zidane, the man Perez appointed a year ago, Madrid have claimed the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup while going 38 games unbeaten to forget about the woe of 2015. 

Not for years have Madrid looked this settled. The squad is deep and loaded with talent, the manager is as popular as they come and there's a sense of harmony that wasn't there before. There's a template for sustained success here, then; the question is whether Perez will use it. 

After all, Florentino is, well, Florentino. Few presidents or owners have ever been defined by their thirst for marquee signings quite like Perez, the man who gave the world the Galacticos. And it's been a while since the last one.

Since the signing of James Rodriguez (and that of Toni Kroos) two-and-a-half years ago, Madrid's transfer activity has been subdued. The summer of 2015 was about packing out the squad's periphery; last summer saw only Alvaro Morata arrive; for the current winter window, Madrid are handcuffed with a transfer ban. But how long will the inactivity last? 

Madrid's transfer ban has been reduced from two windows to one, meaning Perez can target players for the coming summer. With Madrid stable and successful, ripping up the foundations wouldn't be wise. But like Kermit the Frog, there's surely a cloaked and hooded version of Perez itching to do just that in another characteristic splurge. 

His willingness to temper his own model will be key to Madrid's ability to prolong their success. 

Jorge Sampaoli and Sevilla

There's finishing and then there's finishing. Anyone who saw Sevilla trample Malaga with four goals in 10 minutes in late December will have recognised that Jorge Sampaoli's men achieved the latter when signing off on 2016.

"We had our opponents at our mercy," the Argentinian said. "I'm delighted with the performance and that we have earned the respect of everyone for the way we are playing."

He's right, too. Under Sampaoli, Sevilla have become one of the must-watch teams not just in Spain, but in all of Europe. Ambitious and daring, versatile and full of swagger, the Andalucians have made their best start to a season in years. In La Liga, 10 wins from 16 games have them third in the table, just a single point behind Barcelona. On the continent, they've reached the last 16 in the Champions League, where they've drawn Leicester City. 

This has the potential to be the golden season of Sevilla's golden era. On the back of three Europa League titles, the men from the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan are taking the next step again, threatening to bust through the barrier separating Europe's elite from the rest. But planning is imperative here, because the picture could change in a hurry. 

Impressing in another job after a fine spell with Chile, Sampaoli will be on the radars of the heavyweights. The obvious one is Barcelona, who have uncertainty regarding the future of Luis Enrique beyond this season. If the Asturian were to walk away after three fine years—and one gets the sense he's considering it—Sampaoli would be high up on the list of possible replacements.

But it's not just the manager. After wanting to step away in the summer but forced by the club to honour his contract, Sevilla's sporting director Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo is another who could depart come the end of the season. You'll know him better as "Monchi."

Monchi, of course, is the architect of the modern Sevilla, the man around whom the finest scouting and transfer model in Europe is built. Other clubs are circling, but a simple desire to escape football's relentlessly exhausting nature could be what takes Monchi away from Pizjuan. 

"I didn't ask to leave because I had 15 offers on the table," he told the club's media last summer (via Marca), "but because I wanted to disappear for a while and relax."

For Sevilla, then, planning is vital to ensure the club doesn't disappear with him.