Is La Liga the Best League in the World?

According to new Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo in The Guardian on July 5, Ronaldo claimed that La Liga is the best football league in the world, and he claims with all of the new players, no league in the world can compete with La Liga.

Ronaldo has also claimed that with all of the talent that is now at the Bernebéu, Real Madrid is the team to beat, and Ronaldo is looking forward to playing at the Bernebéu during this year's Champions League final.

Ronaldo also brought up the power of Spain in winning Euro 2008 and FC Barcelona's unbelievable season last year as support to his claim.

But the question now is this: is Ronaldo right?

Yes, the Spanish national team is still one of the top national team's on the planet, despite their disappointment in the Confederations Cup.

Yes, Real Madrid have bought the services of players such as Ronaldo, Kaká and Karim Benzema in this summers transfer window, and appear to be a devastating team on paper.

Yes, fellow Spanish giant FC Barcelona did beat everyone in their path as they got the Spanish treble, and have arguably three of the best players in the world in Messi, Eto'o and Henry.

But is a player who never played a second of La Liga right to make these acquistions?

The answer is no.

Apparantly Ronaldo doesn't remember how the team was at the end of Florentino Pérez's first term of running the team, as the team had no defense and wasn't able to win anything not only in Europe, but also in Spain.

Pérez is known to buy great offensive players such as Ronaldo and Kaká in the transfer window as part of his Galácticos plan, but he neglects the defensive side of the ball, which ultimately caused the end of Pérez's first term as president.

FC Barcelona is not going to have as good of a season as they did last year, as no team in the world can do what they did last season again.

Also, leagues such as the Barclays Premier League, Serie A and the Bundesliga can all make the claim that they are the best league in the world, as many of the best players in the world still play in these leagues.

These leagues all also have had success in the Champions League against foreign competition, just like La Liga.

As the great Zinedine Zidane once said about Pérez while he was still at Real Madrid after the signing of another offensive star in David Beckham when the team was having defensive issues: "Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?"

Sure there might be great players on paper in La Liga, but football games aren't played on paper, everything counts on the pitch.

And it appears that even though Real Madrid might have one of the greatest lineups in football history, you cannot say that they are great until we see what type of product they could assemble while working together, and you cannot say that a league is great just because of a great season by one team and a potentially great team that still hasn't played a game.