What On Earth Is Going On At Deportivo La Coruña?

at the turn of the millennium deportivo lacaronia were real powerhouses of the spanish game in the 1999-2000 season deportivo became only the ninth club to win the la liga title and they remain one of only five teams to have been crowned spanish champions within the last 35 years of the other four barcelona real madrid and atletico madrid still form the top three in the la liga table right now meanwhile valencia are in 12th place in spain's top flight in many respects valencia are a club in crisis and i made a video covering the chaos at the club not so long ago but their plight still mid-table in la liga pales in comparison to the extraordinary rapid demise of deportivo lacaronia 1999-2000 laliga title was undoubtedly deportivo's crowning achievement but that triumph was far from a mere blip or anomaly deport finished as la liga runners-up in each of the following two campaigns they won the copa del rey for the second time in just seven seasons in the most dramatic of fashions in the 2001 02 season and they routinely treated viewers from across the world to some of the most spectacular uefa champions league nights of that generation the pick of the bunch came in 200304 when deportivo faced the ac milan team of dida kafu costa curta maldini gatuso perlo sedorf kakashevchenko and ken milan were the reigning european champions and the favourites to defend their crown in 2003 f4 in the first leg of the san siro deadpool took an early lead before four goals in just eight minutes from andrei shivchenko andrea perlow and a kakab race put the spaniards to the sword ac milan had asserted their dominance on the tie and then he feared for deportivo in the second leg they needn't have done deportivo are a club built upon a unique sense of self belief and the ability to shock and amaze for both good and bad in that second leg backing galicia they beat the best team on the planet four nil in front of 29 000 fans completing one of the greatest comebacks in the history of european competition deportivo subsequently lost to eventual champions league winners porto in the semi-finals but again their heroics against ac milan were far from a one-off within the space of just a few years deportivo beats arsenal 2-1 2-nil and two nil again manchester united two one three two and two nil juventus two nil one nil and one nil again psg four three and four one by munich two one and three two and ac milan two one and obviously also that four nil all in the uefa champions league this was the era of super deadpool and that nickname was thoroughly deserved with star men like rivaldo babito and roy mckay deportivo could beat any opposition on their day as they proved and yet just over two decades on from deportivo's famous laliga title only 17 years on from their famous comeback against ac milan and less than three years on from the club's most recent relegation from la liga deportivo are a club that have gone from being synonymous with over-achieving to one that is synonymous with chaos and self-destruction deportivo now found themselves in spain's graveyard of the third tier which is on the verge of major reform and the convoluted nature of spanish football's reorganization means that deportivo have spent much of this season with the very real possibility that they could find themselves in either the second or the fifth tier next season or anywhere in between depending on just a few results the latter outcome is unthinkable for a club that is still laden with debts dating back to their glory days and will be in a perilous position if they don't win promotion this season with just one fixture remaining next weekend though deportivo's decline has accelerated greatly over the past few years they are in the midst of a long-term downturn that can be dated all the way back to that 2003 04 champions league semi-final defeat against porto as such i've been asked to make a video about depor for some time but i've put it off until now since i know tifo football made a video entitled the rise and fall of deportivo lacrenia about a year ago however having watched that video which is around 12 minutes long and really interesting the first 11 minutes are all devoted to deadpool's golden era and success with only a very brief mention for their subsequent advice so i thought i'd make a video with the opposite emphasis focusing solely on the catastrophic demise of real club deportivo de la coruna in a tale that natives of akaronya describe as having had to have been seen to really be believed so relax get comfortable and join me on a journey to the scenic coastlines sandy beaches and rocky green mountains of galicia to a football club at a crossroads plagued with debt and uncertainty but also on the verge of a potential desperately needed return to the spanish segunda division following their five consecutive top three finishes in la liga between 1999-2000 and 2003.04 deportivo finished eighth in the 2004 05 la liga table that might not seem like the end of the world for a club that were considered to be major overachievers for the last decade but in many respects this was the beginning of the end for deportivo la coruna and without doubt it sounded the death knell for super deadpool you see deportivo aren't a super club who have suffered a fall from grace they are not real madrid atletico madrid or even a team on the scale of athletic build battle deportivo began the 1980s in spain's third tier and though they were back in the second division by the second half of the decade the club faced multiple struggles off the pitch and they faced mounting debts in 1988 local lawyer turned politician augusto cesar lendoro became the club's new president fresh off the back of having guided acornia's roller hockey team to the spanish championship in just 5 years that was an impressive feat but football is a more competitive market than roller hockey and it is also much more capital intensive lendora immediately sought outside investment and took on new loans to service the club's existing debts and during his first few years he did an excellent job of increasing the club support base lendoyro is an infectious character an intelligent negotiator and an expert in the field of marketing all those attributes combined to attract a raft of new members at the estadia riyaza allowing the club to repay some of their debts and invest in their playing squad initially the plan was to sign talented players who have been discarded by spain's top clubs and depor appeared to have mastered this art it took lenoiro just a single season to turn deportivo into title challenges in the segunda division and in 1991 the club won promotion and booked their place in the upcoming la liga season for the first time since 1973. of course lendoiro's ambitions and deportivo's achievements didn't end there but once the club won that first la liga title in 2000 first and only lendoro became obsessed with the aim of keeping the club competing for major trophies in 1966 deportivo signed future ballon d'or winner ronaldo from palmeiras but following an outstanding season at the reactor deportivo were caught out when barcelona triggered the brazilians buyout clause from that point on lendoyro became hyper alert to keeping depo's best players at the club and especially concerned about losing anyone to the team's laliga rivals both of these fixations led to a continued escalation of the club's budget as deportivo began to splash the cash in the transfer market on the likes of diego tristan sergio and albert lucay in addition to a rapid acceleration of the club's wage bill there are a number of comparisons that could be drawn between lendora's management of deportive la caruna and peter ridsdel's chairmanship of leeds united actually a rather similar times just in two different countries just like leeds deportivo had invested heavily in the late 1990s and early 2000s putting all their eggs in the basket of champions league qualification and the tv money that comes with it in leeds case they finished fifth in 2001 02 missing out on the champions league dropping to 15th the following season and then relegation in 200304 for deportivo the decline on the pitch wasn't quite as sudden but their financial cataclysm was just as severe finishing eighth men deportivo would miss out on not just the champions league but the europa league as well and the money that they would receive from playing in the intertoto cup would barely cover the wages of the club's canteen staff albert luke was sold to newcastle united for 9 million pounds to try and fix some of the club's cash flow problems but they were in dire need of return to the league's top four the following season they didn't get it another eighth place finish signaling that deportivo's ability to compete with the likes of real madrid and barcelona had come to an end over the next few years dripped by drip the extensor depot's financial issues began to emerge deportivo managed to hang on for the next few years in la liga but ahead of the 2010-11 season the club didn't pay a single fee other than loan fees to sign a player in a remarkably closely fought relegation battle with just six points separating espanyol in eighth place and deportivo in 18th the club from galicia were relegated and consigned to their first season in the segunda division since 1991. deportivo accused levante and zaragoza of match fixing in a result which led to depor's relegation and they brought legal proceedings against the two clubs that case took almost a decade to go to court and when it finally did just three months ago the judge threw it out over the next few years deadpool yo-yo'd between la liga and the segunda division in 2013 creditors finally came calling most notably the spanish treasury and that is when reports broke that the club was in 164 million euros of debt deport entered voluntary bankruptcy and all of the club's revenue was seized including tv rights sponsorship deals and relegation insurance deportivo were unable to pay their players and administrators were still demanding 94 million euros in debt repentance the only way out of liquidation was for lenoiro to resign so that is what he did in 2014 following 25 years at the hell lendoyro is a curious character with an unusual legacy no one is more responsible for deportive's rise than him but nor is anyone more responsible for their fall it was his sales and showmanship that took the club to the apex of the spanish and very nearly the european game but it was also his financial recklessness that had taken the club to the verge of extinction former club boss and legend arsenio iglesias who had two separate three incidents in charge of the club under lendoro accused his old boss of setting the club on a road to liquidation and after lenoire resigned a couple of deportive shareholders accused him of corporate crimes but those accusations were quickly dismissed lendoro described his own fatal flaw as having been his refusal to sell players for big profits when he had the opportunity to do so due to his thirst for trophies and success whilst he might not have been guilty of corporate crimes so to speak lendoro certainly did well out of deportivo he reportedly enshrined a 400 000 euro a year salary to himself in the club's constitution in 1999 plus beckness's which he continued to take even once the club was hemorrhaging cash since lendoro's resignation deportivo have been almost permanently plagued by chaos and uncertainty from just one president throughout a period of 25 years deportivo have since had three presidents in the space of just two years it tells the tale of a club that has been riddled with internal disputes and totally ruddle us in terms of any long-term plans or objectives in the less than seven years since lenoiro left the club deportivo have had 13 different managers they had three including pepe mel and clarence sadorf in the 2017-18 campaign alone which was the club's last season in la liga relegated in 18th place miles behind laganas in 17th deportivo seemed to be of the opinion that their large budget in comparison to most of the segundo division would secure a safe passage back into la liga yet again that didn't prove to be the case with a sixth place finish booking depor's place in the playoffs but they were beaten 3-2 on aggregate across two legs by majorca in the play-off final the following season which was just last season disaster struck once again for a club mile in debt and enormously reliant on gate receipts the kovit 19 pandemic was devastating for all his faults the one enduring legacy of lendoro's presidency aside from the trophies is deportivo's fantastic support base even as the club were languishing towards the foot of the segunda division table last season deportivo was still able to sell more than 20 000 memberships and get regular attendances in excess of twenty five thousand both figures there will be the envy of most laliga teams of course kovid wiped out that support base and that pivotal section of the club's revenue during a season in which depor were already experiencing severe difficulties out on the pitch going into their final game of the season against funeral abrada deportivo knew that they had to win and had results elsewhere go their way in order to have any chance of survival however on the eve of that game a handful of funeral players tested positive the virus and the match was postponed the rfef and the league still gave permission for the other games involving deportivo's relegation rivals to go ahead as scheduled and both lugo and albacete won their games deportivo's relegation had been confirmed without them even kicking a ball similarly a breach of league rules which dictate that season defining games of that ilk must take place at the same time once again depot took the matter to the court and once again they were defeated their feeling of injustice was heightened by the fact that funeral lebron were represented in court by javier tebbas jr whose father javier tebas is the president of la liga and ultimately gave the go-ahead for those fixtures to go ahead some may suggest a slight conflict of interest but depor had been forced to cough up yet more costly legal fees they lost the case as had been expected and now they've found themselves in the third series spanish football for the first time since the start of the 1980s even at the start of this season now in spain's haunted third tier often described as a graveyard since it is where teams go to die deportivo was still reported to have operational costs of 14 million euros putting them in a completely different league financially to those around them they had also picked the most precarious moment possible to slip into spain's third tier ahead of a complete overhaul of the country's football league pyramid set to come in at the beginning of next season it is a rather convoluted situation and a bit of a man-filled particularly in terms of the lower leagues but here's what it boils down to the rfef are creating a new league the segunda division rfef which will slot in between the segundo division and the segunda division b becoming spanish football's new third tier so for this season the segundo division b went from containing four groups each made up of 20 teams to 10 groups of either 10 or 11 teams and depot tivo are in the segunda division b group 1 group a a league of ten tips of the 10 teams in deportivo's group the top three at the end of the season will go into promotion playoffs to the segunda division the bottom four will go into relegation playoffs either to the fourth or fifth divisions meaning only three of the ten will be assured of remaining in the third tier next season given how little splits the teams in a number of the groups in terms of points including deportivos it means that just a few results could end up being the difference between booking a place in the segundo division next season just one league below la liga or being relegated down to spain's semi-professional fourth or effectively all amateur fifth tiers due to deportivo's big budget and the size of the club they expected an immediate return to the segunda yet again things haven't gone to plan despite having some talented players deputy there carried the deep malaise of a team still feeling the weight of more than a decade of decline similar to sunderland in england or kaiserslautern in germany there is a feel bad factor that rings around the reactor every missed opportunity breeds doubt every goal conceded leads to heads dropping and every defeat only reaffirms the belief among players and supporters that the club is only heading in one direction even as players managers and presidents have come and gone that feeling has played the club throughout and they seem unable to go on the front foot with any confidence in games or cope with the expectation of being the favorites following a half decent start to the season the wheels fell off towards the back end of 2020 leading to fears of relegation to answer deportivo's humiliation they are currently competing in a league alongside celta vigo 2 the reserve side of their great galician rival selta in december celta's second string beat deportivo at the reactz heralding a new low for the club last weekend the reverse fixture took place at salter in the penultimate game of the league season with just two fixtures remaining deportivo still stood a not unrealistic chance of winning promotion getting relegated or remaining in the third tier of spanish football defeat against celta's reserves would have heightened depor's threat of relegation whilst all but confirming celta 2's promotion thankfully from deportivo's perspective that didn't happen as the club put on their most convincing performance of the season they ran out three nil winners with veteran venezuelan centre forward miku who haven't scored a goal all season up to that point bagging a hat-trick it ended a long winless run it provided the club with their first victory by a margin of more than two goals in more than a year and it means that deportivo now can't be relegated going into the final game of the season but survival isn't good enough financially the club needs promotion without it they will struggle to attract the required investment to continue into next season they are on 26 points one point behind celta's b team in third which would confirm a place in the promotion playoffs though six plays their role are just three points behind them with two games in hand deportivo's final game of the season is against zamora in top spot the only segunda b group a team whose promotion playoff place has already been confirmed deportivo appointed ruben de la barrera in january the 12th job of barrera's managerial career despite the fact that he is just 36 years old whilst barrera's record tells you that he tends not to stick around at clubs for too long and deportivo's record with managers tells you that they tend not to keep managers for long there are reports that both parties are keen to make this a long-term partnership barrera has returned to spain from romania bringing with him bold plans innovative ideas and a personable character reports suggest that the players have taken a shine to him and whilst deportivo's directors have rarely agreed on much in recent years the club is now 80 owned by a local bank there appears to be a consensus that whatever the outcome of deportivo's final game this season the club just needs some form of stability as i said earlier on deportivo are not traditional powerhouses of the spanish game they are a very well supported team from a city of fewer than 250 000 people who enjoyed a dream decade between the early 1990s and the early 2000s their support is fantastic though their loyalty is unwavering and the importance of the club to the local community is irrefutable many neutrals will be wishing them well in their final game this season and hoping that whilst a return to the champions league may look like a pipe dream right now the club can at least become sustainable and gain some certainty over their future deportivo faced some more this sunday at the estadia reactor in the tie that will dictate whether they make the segunda b promotion playoffs so that is it for today's video but thank you all as ever for watching give us a like if you enjoyed it let me know your thoughts down below the comments and make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for hitc sevens you can also find me on either twitter or instagram by the username at hrtc7s on both platforms should you wish to do so

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 191,062

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Deportivo, La Coruna, La Liga, Documentary, What On Earth, Deportivo La Coruna, Deportivo La Coruña, Segunda Division, Decline, Demise, Rise, Fall, Champions League, UEFA, Finances, Debt, Crisis, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Manchester United, Owners, Ownership, HITC, Sevens, Depor

Id: IQwlBlWAeaM

Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021