Segunda División - Fallen giants and return tickets
With the top tier all sorted now, we can take a look at the shenanigans going on in the Segunda. Although there remain issues to be settled, it seems fairly certain that a club who won LaLiga just 20 years ago, were runners-up for the following two seasons, Copa del Rey winners in 2002 and Champions League semifinalists in 2004, will be dropping down to regionalised football next season. It’s been a miserable season for Deportivo de La Coruña.
Falling away along with Depor along with Extremadura and Racing Santander are Numanica, whose claim to fame was defeating Pep Guardiola in his first game as Barcelona boss, but those days look a long way off now. Just to add a little recent perspective to the total collapse at the Estadio Riazor, last season, Depor only missed out on promotion to the Primera División after losing the play-off final to Mallorca. They appeared well set to progress after winning the home leg 20, but lost the return 3-0. Although it can be argued that the last ten years or so have seen a steady decline in Depor’s fortunes, this season has borderline been an unmitigated disaster. Los Branquiazuis were victims of the Covid-inspired postponement of their final game of the season against CF Fuenlabrada.
The Galicians were clinging to the hope that a win would give them a chance of salvation, but with no less a dozen Fuenlabrada players testing positive for the virus there was little chance of the game being played in anything like a safe scenario. Inevitably, the fixture was postponed. “After detecting positive cases (at) CF Fuenlabrada, the Spanish football federation (RFEF) and LaLiga have mutually agreed to postpone the Deportivo vs Fuenlabrada match,” said the official statement. The club based just outside Madrid also had aspirations riding on the game, as a draw would likely oust Elche from the last of the promotion play-off places, and offer a chance of top tier football visiting the compact Estadio Fernando Torres. They too would be confounded by circumstance.
As things panned out in the other games though, with Lugo and Albacete winning their games, Depor would have needed to win and deliver a 13-goal boost to their goal difference to scramble above Ponferradina and elude the trap door. Given that they had only scored 59 goals in their 41 league games to date, it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Their fate was officially sealed when the league announced that the game would be postponed indefinitely, meaning Depor would be relegated and Fuenlabrada missed out on the chance of promotion.
For people in my area of the Costa Blanca however, it means that Elche has a chance of delivering Primera División football to this neck of the woods next term. To do so, they’ll need to get first get past Zaragoza – no easy task – and then beat the winners of Girona v Almería. It’s a long shot for Los Franjiverdes, but sometimes fate takes a hand and things just seem to be written. The Estadio Martínez Valero has the largest capacity of any club playing in the Segunda this year, 33,702 only Zaragoza and Depor have similar figures - and would rank well alongside the stadia used by Spain’s top clubs.
Definitely promoted are Huesca and Cádiz, with the former sealing the title on the last day. The Aragonese club are entering the Primera for just the second time in their history after being relegated the previous term. The bounce-back has been impressive and coach Míchel has delivered a series of quality performances in his first season with the club, winning exactly half of the games they played.
Cádiz have experienced much more top tier football than Huesca and, for all but two terms, spent a dozen seasons in the top tier before losing their status in 1993. It has to be said though, that for much of that time, it was a grim battle for survival and for the seven years before they finally capitulated to relegation, they’d finished 19th once, plus 18th and 15th on three occasions each. The relegation saw them fall straight through the Segunda the following term, and spend four seasons in the Segunda División B before fighting their way back up the ladder. It’s perhaps a story that holds out hope for fans of Depor. After working at 11 different clubs across a 15-year career, Álvaro Cervera arrived at the Estadio Ramón de Carranza in 2015, and it will be interesting to see how he progresses. Will it be a Granada-like renaissance for Cádiz, or a short-lived visit, more akin to that experienced by Mallorca?
Talking of teams in the top division, some interesting stats came to light this week. Although Messi outscored Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema, 25 to 21 to become LaLiga’s top scorer, the value of the French striker’s goals was much higher. Taking into account where goals changed games and either won, or prevented the loss of, points, Los Blancos profited much more than Barcelona from their player’s output. The 21 goals that Benzema netted added 16 points to Real Madrid’s total, meaning each strike was worth 0.76 of a point. Messi scored four more, but his 25 only delivered 11 points for the Blaugrana. Each goal being worth 0.44 of a point. It emphasises that hoary old chestnut that it’s not the 4-0 or 5-0 romps that win the league, it’s the 1-0 and 2-1 victories that get you over the line.
On the subject of the importance of narrow victories, rumours are circulating of a big money move from Premier League club Chelsea to prise Jan Oblak away from Atlético Madrid by offering to pay around €127million for the Slovenian goalkeeper. He’s targeted as a replacement for Spanish worldrecord goalkeeper purchase Kepa Arrizabalaga, whose performances have veered from the excellent to the eccentric, with many more of the latter than the former.
Widely regarded as one of the top stoppers across the globe, Oblak would be a massive capture for the Stamford Bridge club and there’s a welltrodden path of transferred players between the two clubs, but it’s difficult to see El Cholo letting this happen even if Roman Abramovich sanctions the spend. Regardless of who comes in though, Kepa seems very much on the way out this summer but with his mega-wages deal deterring otherwise interested suitors in LaLiga, Chelsea may have to bite the financial bullet and either agree a cut-price deal or a long-term loan. Either way, the Basque is likely to be back in LaLiga next season.
¡Hasta la próxima semana!