Deportivo La Coruna was a team called ‘El Super Depor’ but when you look at the inexplicable decline, you can’t but wonder why a club that was once a perennial title contender in La Liga, a European powerhouse, and also a well-revered club in Spain even though they are from a very small province now turned into a nonentity and enervating team struggling for survival in the Segunda Division.
As a Los Blancos fan, ask me about Deportivo La Coruna, then I would tell you that they’re one scary team I dreaded so much, due to the way and manner they usually tackled Real Madrid anytime they take to the pitch against Los Blancos.
‘Super Depor’, a name they were been christened when things were going on smoothly, then the Galicia were arguably the best side in Spain, ruffled shoulders with the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and were also ranked fourth in the world.
With some of the best players in the team that played for the Galicia team like Rivaldo, Bebeto, captain fantastic Valeron, Roy Makaay, and not forgetting Diego Tristan a deadly goal poacher that tormented the Spanish league with his skills and eyes for goals.
April 7, 2004, will no doubt remain a remarkable and unforgettable moment for all football enthusiast all over the world and specifically the Depor fans, for how the Galicia side surprised the footballing world by stunning European giant AC Milan at the Riazor Stadium when they turned around a three-goal deficit from the first leg in Milan in the UEFA Champions League to qualified to the semi-final of the competition.
Their defeat to Valencia in 2011 in La Liga which condemned the Galicia side to the second tier of Spanish football since 1991 was the beginning of their fall from grace to grass, as the Riazor fans and players looked in despairs of their confirmation to the Segunda having enjoyed a successful time in the league before a nadir moment in their history.
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Their triumph in the 1999-2000 La Liga campaign and their fairytales ride in the Champions League in 2004 was a testament to how fantastic that Deportivo La Coruna side was, but unfortunately for the Galicia side, they couldn’t build on that success as what it looks like cracking the duopoly dominance code of Real Madrid and Barcelona failed in keeping to what many thought would be the situation in the Spanish league for many seasons to come.
A lot of questions were been asked concerning how Deportivo La Coruna was able to assemble great football stars in that team that won the league, and also wine & dine with some of the best teams in European football during those periods?
Augusto Cesar Lendoiro is definitely the answer to that question, and according to El Pais in 2009, “He touched the sky with them“, rescued them after almost 20 years in the second division to win the league in 2000, 2 cups in 1995, and 2002, and also launched an assault on the champions league, did so at the expense of generating a debt of about 160 million”, Lendoiro’s role in dragging Depor to a successful height was a testament to how much he loved the Galicia side.
According to report, Lendoiro and Deportivo La Coruna have been together since the ’80s, up on till things went rough for the Galicia side before him Los Blanquiazules was a relatively anonymous club and the tales about the club had revolved around the Segunda Division.
While their reign in the first division had been nothing to write home about in terms of season-ending position always on the mercy of Los Blancos, the Catalan and Los Che.
Deportivo La Coruna success stories began in the 1991 campaign, following their promotion to the first division for the first time since 1973, there was a massive turnaround in their fortune.
As Lendoiro began to invest massively in playing staff, improved the infrastructure of the club and making sure the club is quite stable financially, fortunately for them all the players brought in by the club hit the ground running under Arsenio Iglesias, a manager known as ‘The Fox of Artexio‘.
The Galicia side announced their presence in the league as runner up twice in a row 1993 and 94, which was a testament to the rapid growth they’re experiencing having toiled in the Segunda Division for a long time before they were now transformed into a more competing team in 1991, as such they proved doubters wrong as they went on to win the Copa Del Rey and also embarrassed Los Blancos in Spanish Super Cup with a 5-1 thrashing.
Perhaps they could have won the league having announced their presence in the league when they found their way out of the Segunda Division into the first tier, unfortunately for the Galicia team, they were stopped by Valencia in a title decider match that handled the Catalan side the title, as the Super Depor and the Riazor fans went down on the ground like a crying baby in pain.
Ironically, the day Los Branquiazuis went down to the Segunda Division, the report has it in El Confidencial that a number of Los Che players had received a substantial premium from Barcelona in return for them to avoid defeat against Deportivo La Coruna, for the Catalan side to be crowned the champion of the Spanish league, and thankfully for Barcelona, the team from the Mestalla did justice to the match and nailed the Galicia side to the cross.
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Prior to the season, Deportivo La Coruna got relegated to the Segunda Division, the managers in charge of the team were given free hands to choose their own transfer targets in the market.
The manager in charge of the team then signed one of fast raising Spanish forward Diego Tristan from Real Mallorca, to add to the arrears of stars in the team as Los Blancos failed to trigger the signature of the Spaniard, a decent signing that catapulted the Galicia team for a good foundation for their triumph in 2000.
You cannot talk about Deportivo La Coruna without talking about the kind of tactics they deployed when they filed out against opponents, the Galicia side more often than not usually filed out with a 4-2-3-1 formation that gives room for two holding or defensive midfielders.
The man I usually called ‘The Depor’ butcher Aldo Duscher, a fantastic defensive midfielder and workaholic that could rival any topnotch modern-day midfielders, Djalminha a restless midfielder that won’t just stop running until he gets the ball out of the opponent feet, Emerson equally up to the task anytime he’s been called upon to play and two other great players that made Deportivo La Coruna midfield and the entire team thick.
For every team that wants to face the Los Blanquiazules, they’re always a big conundrum, or a puzzle such team must solve because of how they usually set up and the kind of fantastic players they paraded, like the son of the soil and captain fantastic Valeron, the explosive Alberto Luque, goal poacher Roy Makaay.
The ever-reliable Diego Tristan snatched from the jaw of Mallorca, and in their defense lies the Moroccan rock-solid defender Naybet, the Portuguese workaholic Andrade and Donato who were always a hard nut to crack for oppositions for a very long time.
The 1999-2000 title triumph for Los Blanquiazules paid a huge dividend to what Lendoiro had begun building over a decade, as the team subdued the duopoly dominance of Barcelona and Real Madrid in the Spanish league and put them up top on the front burner for the whole world to see what the provincial side are capable of, and without mincing words, Deportivo were indeed a swashbuckling side in that season with a great set of players.
Following their title triumph and mouthwatering display when they won the league, the season after Los Blanquiazules couldn’t repeat the kind of assault they launched on the La Liga title and won it, they were able to take solace in their European football fairytales journey in the Champions League that got them to the semi-final.
Albeit they failed to win the league again, but then football enthusiasts all over the world regarded that period as one of the best moments for the Galicia team and their fans, in a period that made the players the darling of fans specifically for how they performed against Milan.
Deportivo La Coruna Decline
End of an era begun or set in for Super Depor when the money bags began to pulled the plug, players left, for those whose their careers are whining down retired, the explosive Luque having served and paid his dues diligently, Roy Makaay left for a better club in Bayern Munich, Andrade, Walter Pandiani, Fabricio Coloccini, Naybet to name few, all left the team, and surprisingly Lendoiro noted in 2009.
That “big mistake was not to have sold players when I could, the illusion was to win titles, now I know I have to find solutions to problems arising from that goal, but as the Riazor Blues sing, how am I going to forget that Depor won the league if it’s the best thing that happened in my life”.
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In 2011, relegation came calling for Deportivo into the Segunda Division, with a bunch of players low in quality compared to what they paraded before then, the following season they made a swift return back to the first division, unfortunately for the Galicia team, they were relegated again in 2013.
In the 2014-15 campaign, they looked like a reborn Depor, by leading the league table for 15 weeks having come up from the Segunda as a runner up to Eiber, but sadly for Depor they went down again having finished 18th on the log.
With the money and Lendoiro gone, it’s was evident that Depor just had to return back to how they were before, humble with a relatively small budget to cope with since cash and Lendoiro had eluded the Galicia team, they’ve really looked bereft of the team the world knew them for, and since their demotion back to the Segunda Division, the tales of Super Depor had been of a team that fell from grace to grass and poor Depor.
The question is are we going to ever witness such a swashbuckling Depor side again? A million dollars question that may not get an answer soon as they continue ecstatic swimming in the Segunda Division waters.
