Feliz navidad y nuevo año! It's been a full year since I started the Euro Footy Focus blog on Newstalk.ie and what a year it has been in European football.
That's not to say it's been a good year. One of the recurring themes over the past 12 months has been the term "financial trouble". Every other Euro Footy Focus article either mentions that very phrase or a synonym.
While I have generally avoided writing about Real Madrid and Barcelona on Euro Footy Focus, many famous clubs in Europe from the smaller leagues are struggling under the spectre of debt and the widening gap between the haves and the have nots.
Indeed, the team most featured on Euro Footy Focus in 2013 hit rock bottom. AEK Athens, a club most of us are familiar with, were relegated from the Greek Superleague at the end of last season and started the current campaign in the amateur leagues.
And as we'll find out, it's hardly an isolated tale...
Spain
During the summer, a part of me thought Real Madrid had changed. Before paying a world record fee for Gareth Bale at the end of the transfer window, the world's biggest club had been making a point of acquiring young, up-and-coming Spanish players like Isco, Asier Illarramendi and ex-cantera grad Dani Carvajal.
While the signing of Bale meant the Galactico policy is still alive and well at the Santiago Bernabeu, the likes of Isco and co have been getting reasonable game-time thus far.
It's good to see a well-run club like Villarreal flying high again and it's a mark of how quickly things can change in football. Yet when I wrote about the Yellow Submarine in May, things were still uncertain in the Segunda Division.
Athletic Bilbao are currently two places ahead of Villareal this season. As they hold on to that fourth Champions League spot under Ernesto Valverde, they are consigning a poor 2012/13 to distant memory and enjoying their new stadium which replaces the sacred San Mames which was the oldest stadium in La Liga.
But the other stories in Spain were more depressing. The Seville clubs are both operating in an atmosphere of austerity. Real Betis are bottom of La Liga, while Sevilla have become a selling club over the past few seasons as the memory of the mid-to-late 2000s become a pinprick on the horizon.
Valencia's future could be sorted out one way or another by the middle of next month. As our European Football correspondent Graham Hunter told Off The Ball last week, Los Che could go bust. Back in July, I spelled out some of the issues plaguing the club and that was before they had even sold last season's top scorer Roberto Soldado to Tottenham. But billionaire Peter Lim has offered to buy the club, giving them a deadline of January 15th to say Sí or No.
Last season was probably the high point for Malaga as they came within minutes of the Champions League semi-finals. But behind the scenes, the club's Middle Eastern owner was causing ructions for a team which was managed by Manuel Pellegrini. They have returned to being a mid-table club with an eye on the relegation zone.
Spain's first champions of the new Millennium, Deportivo de la Coruña, were relegated at the end of last season. They are on course to bounce back at the first attempt as they top the Segunda Division but they will be taking hefty debts with them.
And finally Atletico Madrid are giving Spain's Big Two a run for their money under Diego Simeone, while they also make waves in the Champions League. But it's easy to forget that they also have debts to keep an eye on.
Italy
For those of us weaned on Channel 4's Football Italia during the 90s and early 2000s, Serie A always retains an allure untarnished by the league's current struggles.
The most interesting tale from Italy so far has been AS Roma's superb start to this season and Newstalk news reporter and Roma fan Richard Chambers guest wrote a Euro Footy Focus column to explain how Rudi Garcia has revitalized a club which was at war with itself as recently as six months ago.
2013 could have been Fiorentina's year due to the improvements and exciting style of play implemented at the club under Vincenzo Montella. They just missed out on Champions League qualification in May but are back in the hunt for European places again.
AC Milan may have beaten Fiorentina to third in May, but despite some young talent at the club, 2013 has seen them lurch from crisis to crisis.
Inter beat the Rossoneri in last weekend's Milan derby but are also at a relative ebb. While they try to rebuild under new owner Erick Thohir, they may begin delving into a talented but grossly under-used youth academy to supplement a first team which has declined since the 2010 Champions League title.
However, it is a general trend for young players to be given more of a chance with the Italian national team and we may well see quite a few Azurri in their early 20s at the World Cup.
Juventus are on course to take a third straight Serie A title but they aspire to so much more. The Bianconeri signed Fernando Llorente (and later Carlos Tevez) with a view to challenging for the Champions League this season and beyond. Unfortunately for them and to the detriment of Serie A in general, they bungled that and crashed out in this season's group stages.
I expected Rafa Benitez' Napoli to make a greater fist of the title race this season after astute moves in the transfer market but they find themselves 10 points behind Juve at the winter break. They were unlucky to exit the Champions League at the group stage though.
The most bizarre Italian feature on Euro Footy Focus centred around Palermo's infamous owner who has professed a wish to dine on his players' testicles in the past. He has a habit of sacking manager's on a whim and Gennaro Gattuso was the latest to experience that as the Sicilians get used to life in Serie B. Granted Gattuso has more to worry about as we found out on Off The Ball...
Portugal
One of the most interesting stories to write about on Euro Footy Focus was Benfica's decision to become the first club to exclusively screen their own home league matches via Benfica TV. It will be interesting to see whether other clubs follow suit.
Equally fascinating has been Sporting Lisbon's form in 2013. They started the year mired in major financial trouble (there's that term again!) and eventually finished last season in mid-table. Yet they have ended this season's winter break at the top of the Primeira Liga as the club try to clean up their act.
Just to show how quickly things can change in football, tiny Pacos de Ferreira are joint-bottom of the Portuguese league heading into the winter break just months after taking part in the Champions League qualifiers for the first time in their history. Their rise was sudden and their fall has been equally swift.
Meanwhile, the biggest news in Portugal was the way Cristiano Ronaldo dragged his nation to next year's World Cup but it seems the next generation of talent falls some way short of the silver and golden generations of the past. Keep an eye on Portugal over the next few years and see if they continue to qualify for major tournaments (by the back door as they always seem to do)!
Greece
While Olympiakos dominate Greek football at the expense of financially-hamstrung Panathanaikos, a Greek tragedy has been taking place.
AEK Athens is the club I've followed most closely in 2013. Things looked bleak from the start of the year, but got worse amid a cacophony of pitch invasions, bankruptcy, relegation and a lone Nazi salute.
The Athenians are starting from scratch in the Greek third tier but even among the embers, the 11-time Greek champions are showing faint signs of rising like a phoenix.
Turkey
The national team failed to qualify for yet another World Cup despite its large population. But as it turns out, Turkey punches well below its considerable weight when it comes to producing players.
On the domestic front, 2013 was already going to be a fascinating year for Galatasaray even before Roberto Mancini's appointment and two weeks ago we revisited the situation with Turkey-based football writer Eliot Rothwell on Off The Ball.
Former Yugoslavia
A bit of Yugoslavia nostalgia never goes amiss and trying to work out how formidable a joint Croatia-Serbia team would have been in the 90s was good craic.
