Eibar’s promotion to the Primera Liga this season, the smallest team to reach Spain’s top flight, was rightly heralded.
They have been a success story and sit mid-table with 11 games to play, while their average home crowd has risen from 2,900 to 4,800 in their 5,200-seater home.
At the start of this term, a team from the Costa Brava, Llagostera, became the smallest club to reach Spain’s second division. Their president, Isabel Tarrago, claimed Eibar were giants compared to her tiny club, which is based 90 kilometres north of Barcelona.
With six promotions in a decade and hailing from a town of 8,000, their council-owned home stadium was woefully undeveloped and held just 1,500.
One small stand offered cover for 200 by the side of the pitch, not even enough to shelter their average crowds of 300.
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After talks with fellow second-division side Girona, Llagostera re-located to a stadium in Palamos on the Mediterranean coast 27km away, with its natural grass pitch and stands seating 5,800 supporters.
With visits from divisional giants Zaragoza, Sporting, Osasuna, Mallorca, Valladolid, Racing Santander and Betis, plus Catalan neighbours Girona, Barca B and Sabadell, Llagostera worked hard at increasing their audience and marketed themselves as a team for the Costa Brava.
They aimed for crowds of 2,000 and offered discounted season tickets but, as the season started, they were operating on the smallest wage bill in the league and seemed destined for relegation.
As expected, Llagostera have spent most of the season in a bottom-four relegation position – until the start of this month.
They changed managers in October and their form improved enough to keep them in touch with division survival.
This month, though, they have won three games in succession – against Recreativo Huelva, Osasuna away and Sunday’s victory against a Barca B containing players with first-team experience, such as Munir El Haddadi and Sergi Samper.
Llagostera have risen clear of the relegation zone to 12th and Sunday’s crowd was a healthy 2,895, more than the average of 2,250.
Their ambitious plan has worked and they may even attract some tourists to their final games, in May, as the weather warms up.
The bigger clubs have brought significant numbers of fans, with 1,500 Betis fans (most of them Andalusians living in Catalonia) present in a crowd of 3,800, which was their biggest of the season.
The pitch cut up badly that day and some Palamos fans were not happy, but the €4,000 (Dh16,600) rent they pay each month is helping fourth-division Palamos solve some of their economic problems.
Llagostera take 30-40 fans away in comparison, but 100 travelled to Pamplona for the Osasuna game, many of them from Llagostera’s youth ranks.
They are delighted with this season and the form of players such as Josep Maria Comadevall (known as “Pitu”), who played a game for Barca in 2006 before slipping down the divisions. Now 31, he is shining in the second division.
Llagostera are in form, six points clear of the relegation zone and nine points off Zaragoza, who are in a play-off spot with 16 games remaining. The pair meet on Sunday.
It is difficult to see Llagostera continue to push on, but Spain’s second division is highly competitive, with only three points separating the top five teams.
Las Palmas and Sporting share the lead, followed by Betis, Valladolid and Llagostera’s neighbours Girona, who have never played in the top flight.
With average crowds of 5,000, Girona also are tiny, compared to the teams around them, but their small squad have remained competitive. They were unfortunate to lose 2-1 at Betis at the weekend.
Spain’s second tier could yet throw up more gems, similar to Eibar, for next season.
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