Sports writer Ryan Shumaker discusses the small Spanish soccer club playing in the Copa Del Rey semifinals and their journey to get there.
Over the past 20 years, the world’s attraction to European football has been increasingly exploited by capitalist excess and authoritarian governments using clubs as state assets. This has created a world where Bournemouth is outbidding AC Milan for players and relegation for some clubs means economic oblivion. Europe’s established elite have become so entrenched at the top that fans are urging Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund to win their domestic leagues as though they represent the outsiders. However, amid the transfer market’s hyperinflation and repetitive dominance by the clubs responsible, there is a club in the northeast of Spain who is two matches away from winning the country’s oldest competition in the purest way possible.
Located just south of the French border and east of Basque country, the city of Pamplona is the capital of Spain’s Navarre region and is most known for hosting the Festival of San Fermin where the famous Running of the Bulls takes place. Equally unique to the city’s famous festival is the way its beloved CA Osasuna operates. Along with being the only professional football club in the Navarre region, Osasuna is one of only four clubs in Spain that is owned by its members with an elected president. It is also one of the four teams remaining in this season’s Copa Del Rey. Their opponents in the semifinals are fellow member-owned club, Athletic Bilbao. The second match of the two-legged tie will see Osasuna visit their Basque neighbors with a 1-0 lead to defend and history to pursue. Since their establishment in 1920, Osasuna has never won the Copa Del Rey or La Liga and it’s been 18 years since they last reached the Copa Del Rey Final. As incredible as it would be for Osasuna to win their first major trophy, the scale of what they have already achieved is staggering given where the club was just eight years ago. In the 2014-2015 season, Osasuna were fighting for their lives in the Spanish second division, having been relegated from La Liga in the season prior. With debt piled high, the club were at severe risk of going under if they were relegated to the third tier.
The team survived by one point on the season’s final day and the narrowly avoided crisis prompted the club to begin prioritizing development of homegrown talent instead of overextending themselves in the transfer market. With former midfielder Paxti Punal leading their youth academy, the club has devoted itself to seeing that the kids who come through the academy are developed into players that are identifiable as Osasuna graduates and given a well-rounded education regardless of whether they make it to the first team. There are 10 academy products in Osasuna’s first team and the current squad cost €614 million less than Real Madrid.
Despite the global reach of clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona, the Navarre region of Spain is one where the lure of playing with Balon D’or winners in the Camp Nou or Bernabeu is trumped by the dream of progressing through the ranks of Osasuna alongside fellow Navarrese kids. Similarly, the supporters of Los Rojillos would rather watch Osasuna be a mid-table side with academy products in the first team than abandon the sustainable, community-based model of the club for a fuller trophy cabinet. The supporters are renowned for the atmosphere they create at home matches and although El Sadar only holds 23,576, it was named “World Stadium of the Year” in 2021 and recorded La Liga’s highest ever decibel count during a game against Real Madrid in 2009. It’s one of those special grounds where the crowd has a way of willing the ball into the net when Osasuna needs a goal, but Jagoba Arraste’s side will be without their 12th man for the second leg on Thursday and Bilbao’s fans are known specifically for being at their most raucous on Copa Del Rey nights.
Osasuna’s form in the league isn’t great as they have receded to ninth place, but a mid-table finish in La Liga and Copa Del Rey semi-final is a world away from the position they were in not too long ago. The other three teams left in the tournament have lifted the trophy a combined 73 times and were all playing in the Champions League while Osasuna sat on the brink of oblivion in 2015. If they manage to hold off Bilbao on Thursday, it will be Barcelona or Real Madrid awaiting them in the final. Victory in the final may seem like a long shot, but perhaps it isn’t a miracle that Osasuna is nearing so close to this peak. It may just be that for clubs like Osasuna to win, they have to care about more than just winning.
