Column: Time Wasting Is More Than a Jose Bordalas Problem – It Is a Spanish Problem

La Liga is back, and its first matchday brought plenty of uplifting stories this weekend: our dear “Isinho” Palazon scoring the first goal of the season, Baraja’s revitalized Valencia that is somehow even younger than last year, Sergi Darder now assisting and creating in Mallorca, Jude Bellingham leading a young and energetic Real Madrid, or Isco’s MVP debut with Betis.

Yet it seems that the biggest talk in La Liga town this weekend was over a negative: how La Liga’s new rules regarding added time led to more than 25 minutes of stoppage time at the Coliseum Alfonso Perez between Getafe and FC Barcelona. This amount comes as less of a surprise when you consider who coaches Getafe: ever since Jose Bordalas started coaching in La Liga, his teams have been consistently measured one of the top time-wasters in the league. Maybe it’s not my wisest decision to add more fuel to this discourse, but I feel inclined to contribute a few things.

Some degree of time-wasting and football dark arts is good for the sport. In an era of increasing inequalities in football, time-wasting is a valuable tool for the underdog to level the playing field. It feels deeply hypocritical to see Real Madrid or Barcelona fans complain about Getafe gaining unfair advantages in time-wasting, when their clubs have more than ten times the revenue and wage bill of Getafe. And audiences are certainly entertained by *some* degree of gamesmanship.

However, there is something like too much time-wasting and discontinuity in the game, and both Primera and Segunda Division in Spain are veering into that territory. Since 2019, La Liga has been the lowest-scoring of the Big 5 European leagues. La Liga’s ability to attract offensive talent has dwindled in the face of the