LaLiga Smartbank Special

By

JLGuerrero

With the memory of Riazor

The Second Division is back with

which left us with an endless battle that is still waiting in the courts.

The extension of that Riazor match somehow led to the promotion of

, which, from extension to extension (the promotion goal against Girona also came in added time), rose to the First Division against forecast and training for two months without not even knowing if they were going to play the playoff.

We have been talking for many weeks about a lot of legal skirmish and little football.

It is a high voltage elevator.

This is not going to become the CTF Finance Center in Guangzhou (which reaches a speed of 75.6km / h) to go up and down many times (the record for ascents is held by Malaga, with 13),

because, in this category,

or long lethargy due to the

or

, as our classics have to suffer. soccer like

(53 seasons in Second),

(43),

(38),

(35),

(34),

(33),

(25) or

(24) .

Deportivo said goodbye to professional football after 41 seasons in the Second Division and 46 in the First Division.

.

A professionalized competition, where managers go from sitting in a chair to accommodating themselves in an armchair.

which achieved the most profitable promotion in recent years: they escaped this campaign from a Second B with 102 teams (when before there were 80 ) and the uncertainty of knowing whether non-professional football will start or end with guarantees in Spain due to the COVID pandemic.

That is why Deportivo and Numancia clung to the possibility of a League of 24 until the last moment. Hell is not in the Second Division but one step below ...

We said that until last August 24, Elche, the fifth lowest budget of LaLiga Smartbank 2019-20, said goodbye to the category.

At the age of 40, he reached 571 matches in the Second Division, the competition record.

This year Lugo Iriome González (378 games) and Seoane (376) players have the possibility of entering that honorable top ten of the ranking with the most matches in the Second Division, if Juanfran García (mythical Levante and Celta player, among others, and now the technician-miracle who worked salvation) gives them games and minutes regularly.

And speaking of farewells in the Second Division and the peculiarities of this competition, the

has become an idol in El Alcoraz, who will see him now play in LaLiga Santander after a triumphant year at Huesca, after his frustrated signing for Málaga ( from the house of trouble in Al-Thani) and be champion of the Premier in 2015-16 with the surprising Leicester City, a World Cup player in up to three editions (2010, 2014 and 2018) and an Olympian at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Enlarge

An ocean liner is coming to the silver category such as Espanyol (85 campaigns in the First Division).

Almería will continue for another year in hell.

Two completely different club models, but with the common denominator of another year of suffering.

The Catalan club is financially and football supported by the

(owner of Manchester City among others) and the Girona Football Group (owned by Guardiola's brother), which has allowed it to maintain at least until last season of galactic players for Second as in the case of

;

Almería, meanwhile, only responds to the millions and whims of an impatient owner, who wanted an express promotion at all costs (he appointed five different coaches throughout the previous season) and, so far, the market movement more Important this summer has been the sale of the talented Darwin Núñez for 25 million euros to Benfica.

A category of contrasts

The appeal of the Second Division of Spanish football is the amalgamation of profiles.

(now at Barça after spending time at UD Las Palmas) or

(now at Madrid after spending time at Real Oviedo) are two clear examples.

Then a series of very interesting U-23 players appear, many of whom we will see at higher heights in the coming years if they work hard and injuries respect them, such as

(22) -of Sporting-,

(19 ) -from Oviedo-,

(21) -from Rayo Vallecano-,

(19) -from Las Palmas-,

(19) -from Almería-,

(22) -from Fuenlabrada-,

(19) - of Espanyol-,

(20) -of Girona-. It is a category that cuts, that they tell it to the coaches that appear in the roster of teams.

Many have extensive experience in the First

as

(274 games) -now he directs Albacete-,

(147) -trains Mallorca-,

(160) -third season on the bench at UD Las Palmas -,

(137) -under the commands of Real Oviedo-,

(38) -signed by Espanyol-,

(38) -after many opportunities as a fire extinguisher coach, a season begins at last in the Fuenlabrada-,

(29) -Mister of Girona- and

(16) -hired by Sporting after many years in the Espanyol quarry-.

Then there are veterans such as

(38) -Espanyol-,

(37) -Ponferradina-,

(37) -Tenerife-,

(37) -Lugo-,

(37) -Fuenlabrada- or

( 36) -Mallorca.

All of them willing offer experience and quality to a competition that starts this Saturday with a high-flying match: Ponferradina receives the historic Castellón (4:00 p.m.).

42 exciting days ahead and that we will tell every day at AS. 

The weight of the story

LaLiga Smartbank is First.

At least in the years of history that add up among several teams in the competition in the First Division

, to add a total of 85 seasons in the highest category of Spanish football.

The hope is that his stay in the silver division will be as fleeting as possible.

Score a Huesca (19-20), Getafe (16-17), Betis (14-15) or Villarreal (12-13), who rose just the year after relegation, and in the case of the last three clubs, all they have remained in First ever since.

The category provides background for all spirits.

But

We are not going to talk about Deportivo's misfortune, but there are other clubs that are still anchored in Segunda since the year they fell, such as

and

(2018),

(2017),

(2015),

(2013) or

( 2009).

Others like

(2005) have even penalized for Second B and

(2001), even for Third Division.

Soccer is that sport that at least offers the absurd consolation of settling for seeing the mirror of others worse than you, which ends up ending when your team literally disappears.

which was born as a result of the extinction of CD Logroñés, which descended to Second Division in 1997, did not fly back and the debts drowned him.

Others, like the

, but they did not return to taste the First Division since their last relegation in 1988.

While it is true that the objectives of the 22 teams that make up LaLiga Smartbank are very different depending on the budget and the history of each club,

Tying is better than losing, but the goal is to win.

As

who directed 64 matches in the Second Division, says:

Well, in Second, the first thing is to ensure the category, but

(Cartagena, Alcorcón, Lugo, Mirandés, Ponferradina, Fuenlabrada and UD Logroñés).

Ask

, who dreamed until the last moment of emulating the miracle of Mallorca, that is, going from Second B to First in just 13 months.

It was prevented by a virus that has changed everyone's life.

Without first-class audience

Several Second Division stadiums had a better viewer average than many First Division stadiums during the 2019-20 season.

was the tenth field with the most crowds: 21,911 spectators;

, the thirteenth with 17,585;

, the fifteenth with 17,370;

, the eighteenth with 16,256;

and

, the 20th with 15,842 (Vizcaíno, president of Cádiz, promised a free subscription for the following season to subscribers who attended all home games).

Last season, the silver category featured seven World Cup scenarios that exude tradition, beyond the undeniable pull that silver football has in provinces where there is no team in the First Division.

This year the World Cup player Martínez Valero will not be there, but the mythical sound of "goal in Las Gaunas" will be heard again in Carrusel.

He will join other classics such as the

stadium

,

,

,

,

,

… Pure football the day we recover normality and fans enter the stadiums again.

For now, the environmental factor is also lost in this category.

said Javier Tebas.

Seasons in Second

Sporting 47

Sabadell43

Tenerife43

Castellón40

Oviedo37

Lightning37

Mallorca36

Malaga31

Las Palmas30

Zaragoza23

Albacete23

Girona22

Almeria14

Leganes13

Alcorcon10

Lugo9

Ponferradina7

Mirandés6

Espanyol4

Cartagena3

Fuenlabrada1

UD Logroñés0

Money does not give happiness

The arrival of Espanyol to LaLiga Smartbank is an anomalous situation that affects Spanish football historically, and the bosses economically.

The descent into hell of the fifth most historically important team in our country translates into the largest disbursement by LaLiga for the compensation fund to Espanyol

This mechanism is calculated taking into account the consecutive years that Espanyol has been playing in the First Division, the budgets of the last seasons and the amounts received for audiovisual rights in the last seasons.

The entity led by Chen Yansheng had the ninth highest salary cap in the competition, with 86.3 million euros in 2019-2020.

Television revenues represent 71% of its turnover, excluding transfers.

The

instead 'only' receive about

because in the last five seasons only played for Primera Division once.

The vermilion club only added 22 million euros from television in the last five years, which is less than half of what it entered in 2019-20 for this same game.

on the other hand, would receive about

from the compensation fund because he has been playing four seasons in the elite and accumulates three years in benefits.

Infographic: Miguel Ángel Fernández

In the end, the more budget, in theory there are more chances of going up.

But this business is not just playing with the millions but with balls

euros, however

.

Others like Almería have managed to sneak among the nobles of the competition at the expense of the personal investment of a Saudi Arabian sheikh named

but promotions, as happens in the Champions League with City or PSG (from LaLiga we see with suspicion the so-called club-states), they are not achieved with a checkbook, nor with bizarre decisions such as having five different coaches, including Guti, even occupying the promotion positions throughout the season.

and left the club.

At the moment, the most notorious movement of Almería this summer has been the multi-million dollar sale of Darwin Núñez (24 million) to Benfica.

Hopefully Al-Sheikh maintains its commitment to the Almería Sports Union (in full swing with the first wave of the coronavirus, yes and bravo for him in this regard, he donated 1.2 million euros to the city) so that we do not return to live a Malaga case, which not only threatens the city but also the stability of the League due to the risk of experiencing another Reus case.

and that is having real difficulties to start LaLiga Smartbank with the minimum number of professional files required due to judicial intervention and the ERE applied.

This Qatari sheikh took over Málaga in 2010 and the following year the team entered the Champions League.

But ten years later the dream can end in drama.

For all this,

since in 2015 it suffered an administrative decline (from which Eibar favored to stay in the First

) that led to the well of Second B in 2017-18, but which miraculously rose from its ashes to return to First Division, when it

The record transfer in Second

The transfer market in the Second Division, as in the First Division, has been greatly affected by the coronavirus crisis.

Budgets for 2020-21 will be greatly reduced because in this category, in which historical clubs have great social support,

have a greater

That is why Girona is so difficult to keep a scorer like Stuani for another year in the Second Division.

The great movements so far in the category have been led by Leganés, which comes from years of bonanza in the First Division.

He has signed

from Osasuna (3 million) and has also acquired a renowned striker like

, who arrives free from West Ham.

But removing

for Almería, from the Portuguese Chaves for 1.3 million euros;

o

and

, for Fuenlabrada, from Málaga for € 1.5M and from Círculo de Brujas for 900,000 euros, respectively;

the rest of the incorporations are transfers or players who come free.

According to the International Transfer System (TMS),

So the next few days will be happening ups and downs with the competition at stake.

For this reason, for the moment, the most noteworthy thing is the sale of

, which becomes the highest in the history of the competition.

Normally, the big transfers in Segunda were marked by relegation of teams that could not keep their stars, see the case of

(for € 22.5M with Atlético relegation),

(for € 16.5M with relegation del Betis) or Diego Milito (for € 13M with the relegation of Zaragoza).

But what is relevant about the transfer of the former Almería player is that the

pays a record transfer, which also indicates the competitiveness of the Spanish Second Division.

Virus earrings

Playoff chances

LaLiga's protocol for First and Second is practically the same for COVID, but there are some differences in the silver category.

If

the two-legged

cannot be completed

with the two round-trip heats, it will take place in one of the following two formats:

, in which the matches of the first and the second round will be played as a single match -three matches in 5 days-;

If the playoff is determined in the original format and one of the participating clubs cannot play it due to causes derived from COVID-19,

Suspensions

If a match cannot be played due to the pandemic, it must be agreed to postpone the match to a new date.

However,

 (30 in First).

 (one for LaLiga Santander) and the club that was not responsible for the suspension will not be counted as a suspended match.

and in the event that neither of them is, the match will be considered lost to both teams.

Alternative stadiums

If it is not possible to play a match at the home team's stadium

In this sense, the clubs must

chosen

.

If said stadium was also prohibited from playing matches, the affected club or LaLiga may "designate another stadium that meets the requirements set forth above."

Infographic: Miguel Ángel Fernández