Last year, Barcelona notched up an unprecedented treble for a Spanish club by winning the domestic league and cup double as well as the and this season Sevilla are determined to repeat the Catalan club's feat.
Well, to be honest, my tongue was probing the inside of my cheek as I wrote that opening paragraph, but they are deadly serious down in Andalucia.
"As long as we still have chances in all three competitions, we are not going to give up that dream," said Sevilla's on Sunday, in the wake with nine men which ended the Balearic side's 100% home record.
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With most of the Champions League attention seemingly , Jose Mourinho's and Barcelona's ambitions of retaining their title, one team seems to have been overlooked in my humble estimation, namely Portuguese champions .
Even Uefa seems to have almost forgotten they have made it through to the last 16.
Before writing this blog, I looked at and had to scroll down to the middle of January before I found any news on the team.
It's not as though Porto haven't any Champions League credentials - remember their which propelled Mourinho into the arms of Roman Abramovich.
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Why do so few British footballers succeed on foreign fields?
About a decade ago, Johan Cruyff said that he thought it was one of the biggest questions in European football. "Why are there, over the last 40 years, only about five English players who have done well abroad. There's something going on here, something strange," mused the Dutch genius.
Johan was perhaps being unkind. I can think of a few more than five. He also came out with his statement before Beckham-mania took over Real Madrid for a few years, to bump up the number by one.
Nevertheless, he had a point, and his later admission that he meant British players rather just English made his analysis even grimmer. British players still, to this day, seem to wilt abroad, for whatever reason.
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Who saw on Sunday night? I did.
From questions and comments in recent weeks, I knew that there is considerable interest in what's happening in the so instead of shivering at the Vicente Calderon and watching Atletico Madrid's latest exercise in self-destruction, I decided to cajole a reluctant local bar owner into the slightly unusual act of putting German football on one of his TV screens.
What I saw confirmed what I had seen watching Bayer earlier this season, that the might just, finally, be about to put their reputation of being the Bundesliga bottlers behind them.
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Hi, I'm Phil Minshull. I've lived in Spain since 1997 and covered Spanish football since the first day I got here. My blog aims to provide some insight into what's happening in La Liga, and there is much more to it than only Real and Barcelona, as well as elsewhere around Europe.
