All you need to know for LaLiga 2024-25: Madrid, Mbappe, more - ESPN

It's back! The Premier League isn't the only major European league kicking off its 2024-25 campaign this weekend, as Spain's LaLiga also joins the fray.

It has been a huge summer for the Spanish top flight, too, with Kylian Mbappé finally making his move to Real Madrid, Barcelona undergoing profound changes in a bid to keep up, and plenty of splashy signings at Atletico Madrid as they also look to close the gap and contend again.

With storylines galore up and down the table, ESPN's LaLiga reporters break down the big talking points heading into the new campaign.

Real Madrid won the league by 10 points last season. As if that wasn't impressive enough, they did it without their first-choice goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, without the player then viewed as their best defender, Éder Militão — both absent for most of the campaign with ACL tears — and without the elite No. 9 that most observers felt their squad was lacking.

Since that coronation, they've added the world's deadliest forward, Kylian Mbappé, who signed on as a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain. A core group of maturing players — Eduardo Camavinga, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Federico Valverde and Vinícius Júnior — are improving year by year. Madrid have the most-hyped young player in European football, Arda Güler, who starred for Turkey at Euro 2024. And they now have Brazil 18-year-old wonderkid Endrick, a tantalizing, unknown quantity.

That's without even mentioning midfielder Jude Bellingham, Madrid's star player last season, rested and ready to go again after an above-all-expectations debut campaign, or Antonio Rüdiger, who stepped up in Militao's absence to become the best defender in LaLiga.

Put all that together, and Madrid shouldn't just win the league in