Copa del Rey Spain

J

JaenBoro

Well-known member
I don´t know if its made the sports news at all in the UK but there is a great story in this seasons Copa del Rey. I live in Jaén in Adalucia and 15kms away is a small town called Mancha Real (population 11,000). Atletico Mancha Real has been doing well in the league and got promoted last year to the segunda RFEF group 5 (the fourth tier in Spain is divided into 5 regional groups) so now they are in with some much bigger clubs - Hercules and Murcia for example - and they are doing OK. They had never been high enough to get into the Copa del Rey before so a few weeks they played their first ever Cup match against Internacional, a team from Madrid from the league above. Against the odds they won 2-1 with 2 late goals and were drawn in the next round against the mighty Granada CF from la liga. The match was last night and in front of a packed stadium - about 3,000 people - they somehow won again! Granada threw on all their big guns but Atleti managed to hold on to a 1-0 win.

Today they made the draw for the next round and Atleti were guaranteed a home draw against either Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico de Madrid or Athletic Bilbao. Most people in this area support Real Madrid so it would be amazing to play against them. Much to everyones diasppointment, they got Bilbao. Never mind maybe Madrid in the next round!

It's interesting to go to these matches and try to compare the standard to England. I'd say that the teams in the league are definitely equivalent to League 2 or maybe a bit better. They play a more passing game for certain. You see a lot of good youngsters particulary in the B teams of the bigger clubs. A few weeks ago I saw Granada B and they had a couple of fantastic looking young players. The best was Bryan Zaragoza (good Spanish name Bryan!) I'll be interested to see what happens to him and Elliot Gomez (another great Spanish name!) of Hercules - he was impossible to get the ball off. What control.
 
Good story that Jaén. I spent a good number of years living in Madrid in the 80s and 90s and visited Jaén. In fact my brother spent a summer working in the Parador there.
Lower league football in Spain seems to be thriving much more than it was in my day. There were only ever three teams in Madrid then, Real, Atlético and Rayo. I still find it hard to grasp Leganés and Getafe in La Liga. I had colleagues from Leganés and it was always an Atléti stronghold. My local team in Madrid was UD San Sebastián de los Reyes, unbelieveable to think that Super Depor have fallen that far they are both now in the same division.
 
HeineOtto said:
Good story that Jaén. I spent a good number of years living in Madrid in the 80s and 90s and visited Jaén. In fact my brother spent a summer working in the Parador there.
Lower league football in Spain seems to be thriving much more than it was in my day. There were only ever three teams in Madrid then, Real, Atlético and Rayo. I still find it hard to grasp Leganés and Getafe in La Liga. I had colleagues from Leganés and it was always an Atléti stronghold. My local team in Madrid was UD San Sebastián de los Reyes, unbelieveable to think that Super Depor have fallen that far they are both now in the same division.
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How do you think the standard compares to England?
 
No idea these days but I can well imagine it being comparable to League 2. It was definitely non-league standard back then. There was just so little interest in lower league football then hence the plethora of top clubs having 'B' and 'C' teams in the Spanish lower leagues. People would ask who I supported and I would say Middlesbrough and have to explain they were in Div 3, or Div 2 etc and they would always respond with "Ah but who is your big team?" The concept of supporting only a lower league team was alien to them. It can only be good for the domestic game in Spain that this has been changing for a while now.
 
HeineOtto said:
No idea these days but I can well imagine it being comparable to League 2. It was definitely non-league standard back then. There was just so little interest in lower league football then hence the plethora of top clubs having 'B' and 'C' teams in the Spanish lower leagues. People would ask who I supported and I would say Middlesbrough and have to explain they were in Div 3, or Div 2 etc and they would always respond with "Ah but who is your big team?" The concept of supporting only a lower league team was alien to them. It can only be good for the domestic game in Spain that this has been changing for a while now.
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All my workmates support Real Madrid so it hasn't changed that much! I do know a Sevilla fan but he's the only one. We are only 1 hour from Granada and the same from Córdoba but nobody supports them.

The other funny thing is that almost nobody goes to away matches. Last night there might have been 200 from Granada. My mate can't believe it when I tell him about 4, 5, 6,000 travelling away.
 
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