When it comes to La Liga, there are usually just two clubs that are truly considered worthy of making the headlines and, as everyone in the footballing world knows, it is the colossal pairing of Barcelona and Real Madrid.
Dominating the back pages, they can usually be found sweeping up almost all before them on both domestic and continental frontiers. This duopoly has won 58 Spanish league championships between them.
However, they are not the only entities to be creating a buzz in Spain this season, with a lot of focus being diverted towards another Madrid based club and not the one that you would immediately have first thought of.
That’s not to discredit Atletico Madrid: under the tutelage of Diego Simeone they’re still set to finish second behind Barcelona in the La Liga table. But the efforts of Getafe have been generating a huge amount of attention as of late.
That’s because the rather unfancied outfit appear to be eyeing up qualification to next season’s Champions League and if this proves to be the case, it would subsequently be their debut in Europe’s premier club competition.
To do so, they will need to finish in the top four and a look at the current La Liga betting shows that the bookmakers are confident that they can achieve this aim. At the time of writing, bet365 had them priced at 10/11 to finish above both Valencia and Sevilla.
If they manage to finish within La Liga’s top quartet, it will only put a further spotlight on the club. Although that will no doubt be welcomed, it may create something of an issue at the same time.
That issue comes in the shape of trying to keep hold of the players that would have helped achieve the club’s highest ever La Liga finish. This applies to one man, in particular: Djene Dakonam.
This player has undoubtedly been the bedrock of Getafe’s defensive efforts throughout the last nine months and after a string of impressive performances, he is now on the radar of a number of Premier League clubs.
One of them is Liverpool who, despite being well stocked at centre back, have evidently been hit by a number of injuries in this position, costing Virgil Van Dijk the ability to form a solid defensive partnership.
That is where the arrival of Dakonam would be keenly felt and at £30m, he would be a relative bargain in today’s ever-inflating transfer market, while also further strengthening the Liverpool squad.
Such is the interest in the Togolese international, it might be that Getafe face a challenge in keeping hold of him, regardless of whether or not they are playing Champions League football at the start of September.
With the hierarchy in football being as it is, manager Pepe Bordalas knows that he has a real struggle when it comes to keeping his group of players intact for next season and, in one particular instance, it looks as if the Djene might already out of the bottle.
