Spanish football guides
What you need to follow the season: how promotion and relegation are decided, how teams play and what the laws say.
Key points
- Six guides to follow the Spanish season: competitions, tactics, rules and the transfer market.
- Every guide cites its sources: IFAB and Spanish FA regulations, Spain's official gazette and LaLiga itself.
- To check what you have learnt, try the football quiz.
The competitions
- How La Liga worksClubs and matchdays in La Liga and Segunda, promotion, play-offs, relegation, European places and tie-breakers.
- Liga FSpain's professional women's league: format, Champions League places, relegation and how it turned professional.
Tactics
- Football formations4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 and 3-5-2 with a diagram, their strengths and their risks.
- Tactical conceptsHigh press, low block, positional play and transitions, with examples.
Rules and the market
- Offside and VARWhat Law 11 says, when there is no offside and the four situations in which VAR can step in.
- How transfers workTransfer windows, loans, release clauses and La Liga's squad cost limit.