A year and a week after the promotion to eternity of Arsenio Iglesias, his Deportivo has been promoted to Second again. The crowd that on May 5, 2023 mourned with sadness in A Coruña the loss of its legendary man, cried again on May 12, 2024, its irrepressible joy at having put an end to an ordeal of four seasons outside of professional football. Riazor was once again a hive of feelings, reflected in the scorer of the decisive goal. As if all the symbols had lined up for the celebration, the honor went to Lucas Pérez, that kid from the neighborhood who has shown that you can still be a soccer player without having to be a mercenary: he paid half a million euros out of his pocket to leave the First Division and go two categories lower to help the club of his life.
In Depor almost everything happens in May. It was the 14th of that month in 1994 – this Tuesday marks 30 years – when the League experienced in Riazor the cruelest outcome ever seen: a humble team, without any title in its career, lost the championship that was within its reach by failing a penalty in the last minute. Football mythology assigns certain clubs the label of sufferers and in that few can match Depor. Between the seventies and the eighties he spent almost two decades without playing in the First Division. In 2018 they lost the top category after having achieved a number of points with which no one has ever been relegated. The following year a return to First Division eluded him in the last game. The next he fell into the pit of the third category without being able to play the decisive duel due to the pandemic. The two previous seasons they lost promotion again in the final moments, on one occasion in the last match, in their own stadium and when a draw was enough.
And despite everything, sportsmanship has not faltered. The purpose of football – it is banal to say it – is to win, and in the memory of the clubs their exploits are inscribed first and foremost, in the case of Depor, their League, their two Cups and their fabulous campaigns in Europe. Victories are great in themselves. The real challenge lies in transforming defeats into an act of greatness. Sportsmanship has been lavishing lessons on this for years. He did it three decades ago, when he turned Djukic, the ill-fated penalty taker, into a hero. And he has done it again now, when the club has been hovering in the abyss.
For four seasons, Sunday after Sunday, tens of thousands of sports fans have been at the side of their team, facing inconceivable setbacks and failures at crucial moments. Riazor has supported his team against Tarazona or Arenteiro with the same feeling and the same dedication that he did when Madrid, Bayern or Juventus were against them. The overwhelming images on Sunday, with more than 33,000 spectators in the stadium – a record in the category – and thousands more in the street are already part of the club’s history, as much as the greatest feats in the times of the elite. Because no one tastes the taste of victory better than someone who has previously known the taste of suffering. The wise Arsenio already said it: “The world is not governed solely by the feelings of born winners.”
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