Spain: European Studies

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This project on European Studies will be on the beautiful country of Spain and its football history.

My project will include the three must topics and anther five compulsory topics which consist of:

  • National sport/ Famous sport people
  • Tourism
  • Language & culture (festivals ect)
  • History –key dates/ events in the history of the country
  • Geography& climate

Most of the compulsory topics I will be doing an overview of the topic since my project will be based mostly on the National sport/ Famous sport people of the country. In this project I will explain in detail the football history of country and its high rated football teams.

My ‘Language Model’ which includes a two hundred word essay of your target language, will be on Spanish based on the topic of ‘Self, family and friends.

I will lay out my topics in three different layouts, which will be tourist brochure for ‘Tourism’, an historical diary for ‘National sport/ Famous sport people’ and a mini

dictionary of useful phrases for the ‘Language Module’.

The next few pages will be on my Spanish European Project so I hope you like it and find it interesting.

Spain is most famously know for its beautiful beaches however it is also know for its great football team and its football tradition.

Alejandro McKay formed Spain’s first club, Huelva Recreation Club, on 23 December 1889, featuring a mix of local Spanish talent and Englishman from expatriate side Rio Tinto FC. The team lifted their first trophy by beating s side comprised of English colony workers and became Recreativo de Huelva in 1903.

Spain’s first club might have formed in 1889 but it wasn’t until 1934 when they qualified for their first world cup. Spain might have the greatest teams and biggest stars in the world but something, somehow always goes wrong for them in big competitions such as the World Cup and European Cup.

Considering their top class player such as Raul, Casillas, Salgado, Campos, Guti, Morientes, Victor, Valeron, Tristan and Xavi, Spain haven’t got the best World Cup record:

World Cup Record:

Qualified: 1934, 1950, 1962, 1966,1978

1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002

Best achievement: 4th, 1950

Biggest Win: 6-1 vs. Bulgaria, 1998

Biggest Lost: 1-6 vs. Brazil, 1950

Spain’s best ever finish in the World Cup is 4th in the 1950’s when they didn’t have Raul, Morientes or Xavi but instead they had Euzebio, which is considered to be Spain’s best ever player and the third ever best player in the world.

Spain hasn’t had the best of luck in World Cups or European Cup nevertheless they are ranked as the fifth in Fifa World Ranking. In the 2004 European Cup Spain didn’t even reach the know out stages, however consecutive friendly win over England and Italy have taken them fifth in the world.

At the moment Spain are 2nd in their qualifying stages for Germany 2006. Spain is in Group 7 with Serbia& Montenegro, Lithuania, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina and San Marino.

The standings at the moment are for Germany 2006:

     

The Spanish first division contains 20 teams, although discussions continue to reduce to 18. It went from 18 teams to 20 in 1988, and increased to 22 in 1995 following a major administrative mix-up when two teams were relegated for not presenting financial guarantees on time, and were then reinstated following lengthy appeals. Although reduced two seasons later to 20, small clubs have since resisted any further change as relegation to the second is an economic disaster, although UEFA are threatening to reduce the number of clubs eligible for European competitions if the reduction doesn’t take place.

The Spanish second division is made up of 22 teams from the whole of Spain, and lower divisions are regionalised. For some reason football authorities don’t like the idea of 1st, 2nd, 3rd ect. In England the first division is called the Premiership, the second division is called the Championship, and the third division is called League One and so on. In Spain, the second division is division 2A (groups 1 to 4), and the forth division is the division 3 (groups 1 to 20). This presumably gives players and clubs more status, rather like calling a junior buyer purchasing executive, or a dustbin man a refuse disposal operative.

As from the seasons 1999/2000, the bottom three clubs are relegated automatically and the top three of 2A are promoted. This is a change from the season before, when two teams were relegated directly and two played off against the third and fourth placed teams in 2A. The bottoms four of 2A are relegated and the top four groups of 2B go into four playoffs groups for the four spots in 2A. Similar systems apply to the third and lower divisions.

One difference with the English football is that reserve teams (called team B, C ect.) of the top clubs play in the lower divisions rather than in a separate league, although the lower ranked team cannot play in the same division as the higher team. The best known case is the Real Madrid reserve team of 1979/80, then known as Castilla, who won the second division could not be promoted.

They also reached the Spanish cup final but lost against Real Madrid by 6-1 needless to say. Another case in point was when Barcelona B were demoted from 2A to 2B, Barcelona c were automatically relegated from 2B to division 3. In order to avoid manipulation of terms, only player under 23 can switch between first and second teams, an first team players cannot play in the reserve team as they do in England, for example when coming back after an injury.

Spanish squads are closely regulated in Spain, and transfers between teams are much more limited than in England. Spanish and the EU players cannot switch between teams in the same division during a season, and the team register a fixed first team squad of 25 players for the whole football year. A window however does not open up for one month from mid- December allowing players who have not played more than four games for their clubs in the season to be transferred. First team players wear one to 25, and the juniors are numbered 26 onward. Non EU players were limited to four per squad as from season 2000/2001, with only three allowed on the played field at the same time. This will be further reduced in coming years.

As in England and most European countries, there are three points for a win and one for a draw. If clubs are on level points, the particular goal average between the two sides counts before the general goal average. So, for example, if X beats Y 2-1 at home, and loses 2-0 away during the course of the season, Y is placed higher in the league, even if the general goal average is worst. If 3 or 4 teams are equal, only the matches between those teams are taken into account, and a mini-league table is computed to decide who has finished higher.

La Copa del Rey, the Spanish cup competition, is given less importance than the FA cup in England, and seems to be played just to fill one more place in European competitions. Many managers have been sacked for winning the cup and not the league, but very little the other way round.

        

Over the last century there have been different teams winning the La Liga and these are the winners from 1929 to 2005.

Barcelona are the 2005 league winner after they held off competition from Real Madrid. Barcelona finished this seasons, Primera Division with 86 points, four more than Real Madrid.

The country I am going to do my European project on will be Spain. Spain is in south-western Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay, Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, and Pyrenees Mountains, southwest of France. Spain also borders its neighbours Portugal and its north of Algeria. This is a map of Spain and South- Western Europe:

Spain flag is made up of Spain’s individual regions. There are 19 individual regions in Spain and each one of them has its own individual flag. These are the 19 individual regions of Spain:

        

     Andalucia flag                       Aragon flag                   Asturias flag

    Balearic Islands flag             Canary Islands flag        Cantabria flag

  Castile and Leon flag                Castile la Mancha flag                 Catalunya flag

Join now!

            Ceuta flag        Extremadura flag        Galicia flag

             Murcia flag                        Basque Country flag        Navarre flag

       Madrid flag        Melilla flag        La Rioja flag

 Valencian Community flag

               Spain

This is Spain’s flag which is made up of most of the 19 above ...

This is a preview of the whole essay