2023-04-29 17:07:08
BarcelonaThe last train towards permanence passes this Sunday (6.30 p.m., DAZN) via Cornellà-El Prat. Anything other than beating Getafe will mean that Espanyol are virtually a Second Division team. Having picked up one point from the last 24, salvation has moved four points away. The white-and-blues are clinging to the few options they have left to work a miracle that the mathematics still do not rule out: a victory against the Madrid players would allow them to match them on points and, not least, win the goal average particular In addition, it would also serve to shorten distances with some other direct rival.
Up front there will be no Quique Sánchez Flores, dismissed this week as coach of Getafe after letting loose a lapidary phrase that could well serve to summarize Espanyol’s season: “We had the option of choosing crap or choosing good. We chose shit, and that’s what we’ll eat until the next game.” The Madrid coach had also been dismissed from Espanyol in April, but in 2018, a few days after pronouncing the now famous “maybe we don’t give for more”. He will be replaced at Getafe by José Bordalás, who will begin his second spell with the Madrid team against the white-and-blues. Winning against Getafe would serve to sink a direct rival a little more, but it would still not guarantee anything for Espanyol, who will face two high mountain stages next week: the trip to the Pizjuán and Barça’s visit to Cornellà.
Espanyol’s future is at stake. As the ARA already explained, going down to the Second Division this 2023 would mean a greater impact than it suffered in 2020, since in the next financial year it will not be able to have most of the financial leverage that facilitated the return to the First and the recovery of much of the lost business. At stake, at least 60 million: the entity would stop invoicing a similar figure during the two years following relegation if you compare the budget planned for this season, 93.5 million, with the income achieved in the 2020- 21 and 2021-22. Last season in Segona, Espanyol could not count on the bulk of the income from the sale of season tickets and tickets due to the pandemic, but in return it did receive generous compensation for relegation from the League which, in case of further decline, it would be less.
Don’t end up like Zaragoza, Dépor or Málaga
The economic blow could be even more painful if the club didn’t manage to repeat what it already did in the five seasons it spent in Segona: get promoted at the first attempt. Bearing in mind that from the second year onwards clubs that lose the category no longer receive relegation compensation, seeking promotion would be an even more difficult mission. A sporting and social trauma that several historical clubs such as Zaragoza, Deportivo, Málaga or Racing have already suffered: from being able to qualify for titles and to qualify for Europe, at the beginning of this century, to accumulating stagnant years between Second and First RFEF.
The white-and-blues still have time to reverse the dynamics in which they find themselves immersed and write a new chapter in their book of miracles. The recent dynamics of the team, at the moment, do not go along: the setbacks recorded between March and April have done nothing but collapse the spirits of a squad that has been starting to look for weeks that Espanyol has a foot and a half in Second So far, neither the reinforcements nor the change of coach have served to give the necessary impetus to a team that has been weighed down too much by the structural deficiencies it has been carrying since the summer: an unbalanced squad that still does not know what it is playing for, that he has paid dearly for all the mistakes made on the pitch and in the offices and that, as if that wasn’t enough, he hasn’t been lucky with arbitrations either. The misuse of VAR, however, cannot be an excuse: if Espanyol is in relegation positions it is on its own merits. To get out of this situation, the first step is to stop being the second worst local. It’s Cornellà-El Prat time.
#bullet #Espanyol #dream #staying