No sooner does one season finish than another one starts. Just three weeks or so after the Spanish cup final ended, Deportivo and Athletic Bilbao were in action in the Intertoto Cup, and a few days after that Valencia joined them. Betis and Villarreal also played their Champions League qualifiers earlier this month, and Betis also featured in the Spanish Supercup which they lost to Barcelona.

As usual our early leaders in our Pichichi table (which we base on all club competitions) come from those teams, with Deportivo's Rubén Castro heading the list and rather strangely his team mate Andrade (who had only scored one goal for the club prior to this season) sharing second place with Valencia's hat-trick hero Rufete. Eto'o, Oliveira and Dani all scored twice in the Supercup, and last year's league Pichichi Diego Forlán is already off to a good start with a goal against Everton in the Champions League and one on the first weekend of the league season. In fact only 16 goals were scored on the opening day, the lowest in ten years, and only Osasuna's Romeo was able to beat the opposing keeper more than once. (29.08.05)