Promotion Sunday in Madrid ⬆️ 📈
While most media attention on Sunday was focused on Real Madrid’s victory parade, there was actual football being played in the city and its surroundings and the stakes were high!
As a large proportion of the population of Madrid woke up slightly bleary-eyed on 2nd June after a night of celebrating, there was serious business to be settled. All over the city (and surrounding region) there were important games which would decide the fates of teams from the Segunda Division right down to the regional amateur leagues.
En Leganés los sueños se cumplen 🥒
After four seasons away Leganés are back in La Liga and it’s hard not to be happy for them.
In 2020, they saw their hopes of staying up hindered by Barcelona using the emergency signing rule to sign their top scorer Martin Braithwaite after the closure of the January transfer window, leaving Lega unable to replace him and having already lost Youssef En-Nesyri to Sevilla, they were desperately short of goals. In spite of that, they heroically took the fight for survival down to the final day of the Covid-affected season, only to be denied a famous victory over Real Madrid when the referee failed to spot a pretty clear handball which would have given them a late penalty.
They lost in the play-offs in 2021 but that was followed by a couple of years of mid-table mediocrity until Borja Jiménez was appointed last summer. I’m a big fan of Borja, he played decent football as Dépor manager and was treated pretty harshly by the powers that be there when they sacked him only a couple of months into the 2022/23 season. He seems like a really nice guy too, so I’m glad he’s found success at Lega.
They’ve been near the top of the table all season and although their form hasn’t been great in the run-in, they went into the final game against Elche knowing that a single point would be enough to secure promotion. This was no nervy finish to the season, they were 2-0 up at half time and with their opponents having nothing to play for, simply coasted to victory. It was also enough for them to win the Segunda title, as already-promoted Real Valladolid lost at Tenerife.
Cue some lovely scenes of the trophy being lifted in front of one of the famous Butarque sunsets and iconic mascot Super Pepino getting in on the action!
The only downside of Leganés getting promoted, combined with Alcorcón’s relegation, is that Madrid has no teams in the Segunda next season, meaning no easy Dépor away days for me.
Viva Villaverde! 💚
The previous weekend, Botti had kept their dreams of promotion alive with a dramatic comeback to salvage a draw from 2-0 down against their direct rivals El Álamo. The two sides were deadlocked on 67 points, but El Álamo’s 2-0 victory in January meant that Botti had to better their result in the final round of fixtures to go up.
Initially things didn’t go well on the long trip to Fuenlabrada Promesas in Moraleja de Enmedio as the home side led at the break but a 70th minute equaliser put Botti level and into the promotion place because El Álamo were losing to Parla Escuela. They went on to score twice more late on to win 3-0 and while those goals were going in, Botti scored a second to seemingly clinch the victory and promotion. It wasn’t that straightforward though, an even later equaliser for Fuenla Promesas left the score at 2-2, but it couldn’t spoil the Botti party.
They hadn’t been in the promotion spots since October, eight games into the season but somehow, in spite of failing to win any of their last three games, they got it over the line and and are now looking forward to life back in the Tercera next time around.
A party in Chamberí 🥳
The Villaverde game was my first choice to attend on Sunday but due to a very busy Saturday (a day trip to Valencia, over 25,000 steps walked) I wasn’t in the best shape to get up early enough to make the long trip south to Moraleja de Enmedio. Instead, I chose a more local option, walking down Calle Bravo Murillo to the Canal Isabel II pitches where Celtic Castilla were playing Santa Ana, needing a win to clinch promotion to the Preferente.
A decent-sized crowd, bolstered by members of the club’s youth teams turned out to see if they could do it but despite dominating, they couldn’t make the breakthrough. Until ten minutes from the end that was, when they were awarded a penalty. The crowd held its breath before celebrating with a mini-pitch invasion as the kick was emphatically converted. Even going down to ten men soon afterwards didn’t have a negative effect and when the final whistle was blown a full scale pitch invasion got the celebrations underway.
Not all happy endings… 😔
Alas, it wasn’t all good news on Sunday.
I saw UD San Sebastián de los Reyes back at the beginning of last month as they just failed to achieve automatic promotion to the Primera Federación and on Sunday they had their second chance to go up as they hosted Zamora CF in their play-off final after a 1-1 draw in the first leg.
I originally intended to make this my game for the weekend (the later kick-off fitting well with my previously-mentioned travel plans) but tickets sold out faster than anyone could have anticipated. In the end, despite the backing of a vociferous home crowd, Sanse came up short, a solitary second half goal was enough to give Zamora the victory.
It’s not over yet…
Even though we’re a week away from the start of Euro 2024, the Spanish season isn’t quite over yet. The Segunda play-offs are just about to start, Liga F has still got two rounds to play and we’re entering the final stages of the Tercera play-offs. Tomorrow Leganés B are hosting Colonia Moscardó in the Group 7 final, with the winners going on to face one of the other 17 regional winners for one of the final spots in next season’s Segunda Federación. I’m going along to that and it may be my last match of the season. Or not, we’ll see…