From Ruin to Return: Depor Are Back

After 8 long years Depor sealed their return to LaLiga with thousands of fans making the journey to Valladolid to witness history.

As Depor prepared for their biggest game in eight years in Valladolid, biblical rain hit the city and the ground. The weather was fitting for a club from Spain’s wettest region, and one where it has felt like it is always raining on Depor over these last eight years out of LaLiga.

Their fall from the heights of winning LaLiga was stark. Twenty years after they won the league, they were in the third tier taking on sides like Guijuelo and Club Marino de Luanco. The Galician derby was replaced with a derby against Celta’s B team.

A club that during the 90s put teams like AC Milan and Manchester United to the sword was now being put to the sword by teams like Coruxo and Celta B. The fall was almost starker. Their first season in the third tier came during a reconstruction of the league, and Depor, instead of bouncing straight back up, almost fell to the fourth.

While Depor achieved unprecedented success during the 90s and early 2000s, it gave many outside of Spain a false image of the club. They had historically been a middling power in the league, not a title challenger. A Coruña is the second smallest city to host a LaLiga title winner after San Sebastian.

The success was built on money that was never truly there, in an era where clubs like Depor and Leeds punched and paid above their weight. While Leeds fell faster, Depor moved between the top two divisions for much of the 2010s, and that in some ways was worse as the financial situation declined.

There was no fire sale like Leeds. The former president Augusto Cesar Lendoiro never came out like Peter Ridsdale and confessed to the financial mess and having lived the dream. Instead, Depor teetered on the edge while trying to hide the extent of the debts. Lendoiro admitted to debts, but not the full scale. He spoke of €98 million, and when he stepped down in 2014, administrators found it was €160 million. In a period when Spanish clubs’ debts were out of control to the tax authorities, Depor accounted for one sixth of those debts.

They had lived the dream and now Depor fans had to live through a nightmare. The club restructured their finances with Galician bank Abanca and tried to stabilise things. On the pitch, the days of Makaay and Tristan were long gone, but the club was still competitive for a period between the lower half of LaLiga and the top of Segunda.

In 2019, the club made the Segunda play off final with Mallorca. Depor won the first leg 2-0 but were stunned to lose the second 3-0. A last minute chance for Pablo Mari, where the defender was free in the box, would have sent them to LaLiga. Instead, he somehow put it wide.

Just nine months later, the club was relegated to the third tier. That relegation came in extraordinary circumstances. It fell during the COVID season, with Depor reaching 51 points. Their final game of the season was called off, with opponents Fuenlabrada having a COVID outbreak, and so the Galicians were relegated without having kicked a ball.

In recent years, teams like Malaga, Racing and Tenerife have used the third tier to reset. Depor did too, but their reset took longer. That first season almost ended in the fourth. The second saw them fight it out with Racing for promotion. Two clubs more used to competing in the top half of LaLiga were now in competition with clubs like Tudelano, DUX International de Madrid and Real Valladolid B.

Racing won that battle by eight points. In the play offs, Primera Federacion hosted them at “neutral” venues in A Coruña and Balaidos. Depor made it through to the final against Albacete at Riazor. With the ground dominated by home fans, it felt set up for Depor to win. Albacete, though, were determined. Their coach Ruben de la Barrera had been sacked by Depor the year before.

When Depor went a goal ahead, Segunda was in sight and Riazor was raucous, but Albacete staged a comeback. Depor, who had once spoiled Real Madrid’s staged 100th anniversary party when they beat them in the Copa del Rey final at the Bernabeu, now experienced what that felt like.

Heartache in the play offs struck again the following season, with the club going down to Castellon in the 108th minute of the second leg.

The 23/24 season, and the return to form of local icon Lucas Perez, returned the club to Segunda. Depor hit their groove in the second half of the season to win the league by eight points.

Perez symbolised what Depor means, he left Cadiz in LaLiga to return home paying nearly €500,000 out of his own pocked to try to lift the club back. While Perez left last season it was fitting that he scored one of the goals to keep Cadiz in Segunda on the same day his Depor returned.

In his post match interview he spoke of his happiness both for Cadiz and for Depor it must have been mixed emotions for Perez having not stayed to see the final dream come true.

The Super Depor years were full of established stars like Valeron, Tristan, Makaay and Bebeto. This Depor side is a different model. The club has put its faith in young stars like Yeremay, Mario Soriano and David Mella.

Their first season in Segunda was solid. They finished 15th, playing fun attacking football. The team was top heavy, but after years of pain, it was good to see them enjoying themselves again, with Yeremay the standout performer.

Many expected him to depart, with Napoli, Chelsea and Sporting Club linked, but he signed again, knowing the club was ambitious and wanting to fulfil that ambition. Despite being from Gran Canaria he has spent the last nine years in Galicia and come to call it home.

So good has his form been there have been clamours to call him up to the Spanish national team over the last year.

Abanca, which had provided the club with loans to support them, took control of the club in 2020 and have wiped the debts and stabilised things.

In the summer, they hired one of the best coaches in the division in Antonio Hidalgo. He had got Huesca to the verge of the play offs on a limited budget. Setting up with a 3-5-2 at Huesca and being defensive minded, how he would mix with a Depor side that was top heavy was always going to be a question.

Hidalgo, like all good coaches, adapted to the players. He has built around the attacking stars of Soriano and Yeremay, allowing them freedom. He has typically played a 4-2-3-1. He has also balanced the team so they are not as reliant on Yeremay.

All season, the club has been locked in a battle for that second automatic promotion spot. When Almeria slipped in recent weeks, Depor took advantage, winning five of their last six and going on a twelve game unbeaten run.

That left them needing just three points against Real Valladolid on Sunday in that driving rain. 5,000 fans made the trip. The club had initially asked for 15,000 tickets in a stadium that holds 27,000. Some were not allowed in the home end with shirts on, so they took them off and bounced in the rain.

Bil Nsongo, a 21 year old Cameroonian striker the club picked up for their B team, came up with both goals. This Depor team feels full of youth and not weighed down by the past, with players like Yeremay, Soriano and Nsongo simply enjoying their football.

Soriano got the opener against Albacete in that fateful play off defeat in 2022. Yeremay scored in the play off defeat the following season. Yeremay, at just 23, summed up perfectly what they had been through and also his own decision to stay when clubs like Chelsea came for him:

“In the end, these are very, very difficult decisions. I wanted to be here, at home, with my people, with my teammates. I was not wrong. I am very happy; I am living a dream.”

As the full time whistle blew, the scenes at the Jose Zorilla were incredible. Depor fans were in tears, one holding up a shirt with the words Abuelo 12, Spanish for grandfather, celebrating for those who are not here to see the return of Depor. The owner, Spain’s fourth richest man, was in the away end in his suit, surrounded by topless Depor fans bouncing up and down.

Players like Yeremay, Soriano and Mella, who have come from the bottom with Depor, celebrated wildly after returning the club.

Internationally, many might have high expectations of Depor, but this is not that Super Depor. This is a younger, not as talented but more stable club and team that is returning. The days of signing Brazilian internationals like Bebeto might be gone, but that is fine. After what Depor fans have suffered, simply stabilising and establishing themselves in LaLiga again is the objective, not title battles or Champions League football.

The fact that, after having to play the Galician derby against Celta B, they can now once again meet on equal terms will be what excites Depor fans, not the thought of playing AC Milan.

This is not the Super Depor of the 90s, but it is a Super Depor to those long suffering fans who have seen a young attacking team make them believe again and, finally, after eight long years, they are back.