Osasuna president Luis Sabalza wells up as he speaks about the journey he and his team have been on to reach this year’s Copa del Rey final, in which they will face Real Madrid in Seville’s Estadio Cartuja on Saturday evening.
“I consider myself a naturally optimistic person, but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined being here preparing for this,” Sabalza tells The Athletic. “There will be at least 24,000 of our fans at La Cartuja, the biggest mass movement of Osasunistas in history.”
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The 75-year-old then pauses to recall a less happy date in his club’s history, June 7, 2015, when an Osasuna side heavily burdened by debt and disgrace were seconds away from relegation to Spain’s third tier, which would likely have sunk the club completely.
“We are all so happy now, but it reminds me of another mass movement, to Sabadell, when we were on the point of dropping to Segunda B, which was unthinkable,” he says. “In the Nova Creu Alta, 3,000 ‘rojillo’ fans gave the team the strength to equalise in the last minute. Thanks to them, we are here today. A club like Osasuna can never forget where it came from.”
Sabalza has welcomed The Athletic to the newly remodelled El Sadar Stadium to speak about his club’s journey over the past eight years. Rojillo director Fran Canal, sporting director Braulio Vazquez, coach Jagoba Arrasate, academy director Patxi Punal and midfielder Jon Moncoyola also tell a story of pulling together, sticky moments and pride in their progress.
“The club has been doing things well now for some years,” Arrasate says. “Each season we have the feeling we are a bit better, we are growing with the new stadium, too. Maybe this Copa final is like a photo of the growth of the club. But we cannot stop now, some teams have reached a final and the following year it has not gone well. It is a positive for us, to push us on still further.”
Osasuna is the biggest club in the northern Spanish province of Navarre, but their only senior trophies are four Segunda Division titles and their budget for 2022-23 was €50million (£44.2m; $55.2m). Saturday’s opponents Madrid see themselves as the greatest club in the world and are the reigning Spanish and European champions, with a €687m budget this season.
“All projects have their moment, their peak,” says Vazquez. “In Segunda Division, it was bad. Now, for just the second time in history, Osasuna are playing a final. Madrid have a lot more experience than us. I hope it is a tight game and we can compete.
“It is David against Goliath. Whatever happens, living all of this, we will feel proud.”
Osasuna (the word means ‘health’ or ‘vigour’ in Basque) are one of just four La Liga clubs still 100% owned by their members. Coming from the Navarrese capital of Pamplona, population 200,000, they have never had the history or the financial strength of the other three (Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao).
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The club’s golden era appeared to be the 2000s, under president Patxi Izco. The team reached their first Copa del Rey final in 2005, achieved their joint-highest ever Primera Division finish of fourth the following season, then reached the UEFA Cup semi-finals in 2006-07.
That could not last. When Izco left in June 2012, it was discovered the club had debts of €80m, most of it in unpaid taxes. Some €10m had gone missing from the club coffers over the previous decade. The situation was so bad that one day staff (working at the old stadium) were surprised when the power company came to cut off the power due to unpaid bills.
The team suffered, unsurprisingly, with relegation in 2013-14 ending a run of 14 consecutive top-flight seasons. Worse was to come with a match-fixing scandal known as ‘Caso Osasuna’. That ended with Izco’s successor Miguel Archanco, among five former club directors, sentenced to prison after a court found €650,000 of club funds were directed to pay opposition players to influence results.
With all the previous directors disgraced, nobody new stepped forward to take over. Eventually, Sabalza, a lawyer who had been the club’s ‘defender of the socio’ from 1998 to 2012 (a role that helped resolve fans’ problems at the club), said he would do it. He and his new supporter-filled board could not afford the ‘deposit’ of €1.8m required under Spanish law, so local businessmen and former players chipped in.
“It is before my time, but it was a bit crazy, money was spent that the club did not have, ending up with brutal debts and relegation,” Canal says. “When our president took over, he had to mortgage practically all his possessions to present the guarantees so that the club could survive.”
The threat of extinction continued as the team went to Sabadell’s Nova Creu Alta on the final day of the 2014-15 Segunda Division season needing at least a point. After just 17 minutes, they were 2-0 down. Given their debts, falling to the semi-pro third tier would have meant bankruptcy.
❤️ Ser de Osasuna es cuestión de alma.#CuestiónDeAlma | #CopaDelRey | #RealMadridOsasuna pic.twitter.com/O7W3iPxgxy
— C. A. OSASUNA (@Osasuna) April 30, 2023
But the team, coached by club legend Enrique Martin, got one back with a header from David Garcia, then Javi Flano headed a 91st-minute equaliser. Despite being unable to spend on new signings the side, built around local players, somehow got promoted through the play-offs the following season.
Returning to the Spanish top flight meant lots more TV money, which Sabalza and Canal agreed to spend on paying off debts, not investing in new players. That was far from popular with many socios and unrest was such that Sabalza resigned as president in March, soon before the team went straight back down to Segunda and conceding a record 94 goals. At the AGM in November 2018, there were calls for Canal to be fired.
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“We decided to take the promotion like we had won a prize,” Canal says. “We knew we would almost certainly get relegated but could use the money to pay off more than €20m in debt. It was a difficult decision, a risky decision. Many socios did not agree, but the passage of time has shown it was correct.”
With so little money for transfers, Osasuna’s Tajonar youth system became even more important. Its director is now Patxi Punal, the Navarrese former midfielder who is Osasuna’s all-time record appearance holder, with 513 games for the club between 1997 and 2014.
“Osasuna has always been a club where homegrown players have been an important part of the squad,” Punal tells The Athletic. “In that (bad) financial moment, the club cleansed itself and started to structure again around the academy. That initiated stability from which everything has followed from 2017.”
The academy has always produced talented young players and the best often left very early, like Raul Garcia, Cesar Azpilicueta and Nacho Monreal over a decade ago. More recently, the sales of Mikel Merino to Dortmund and Alex Berengeur to Torino helped the club pay off the last of its tax debts by the summer of 2017.
The team that roared their way to the 2018-19 Segunda Division championship under Arrasate had a homegrown core. The Garcias, David and Unai, were at centre-back, veterans Roberto Torres and Oier Sanjurjo in midfield, and emerging talent Kike Barja on the wing.
“It’s true we Navarros have special characteristics,” Punal says. “We may not stand out for technical quality, but you can always identify an Osasuna player, an Osasuna team. A lot of character. We never give in. We press high, chase lost balls, attack from the front, all of that we put into our players. There is always a really strong connection between the first team and the academy.”
Former Real Sociedad and Numancia coach Arrasate and his assistant Bittor Alkiza were appointed in 2018 because they share this idea of football.
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“Osasuna is perfect for Jagoba and the other way around, too,” Vazquez says. “Their way of playing is very direct, lots of pressing. The fans want us to go for every game. Sometimes it costs us games, but when the team loses, the fans still applaud them.”
The team finished a comfortable 10th in their first season back in Primera, with homegrown midfielders Moncoyola and Javi Martinez establishing themselves. However, another crux came the following January. A run of 13 games without a win saw the team down in 19th position. Fans were upset and there were calls for Arrasate to be fired.
Those inside the club stood firm — they believed they were heading in the right direction. President Sabalza gave his backing to Vazquez, who called a now-famous press conference in which he said: “Jagoba is the captain of our boat, and if we go down, we all go down together. This club has got out of worse situations than this.”
That press conference has in recent weeks gone viral in Spain, with its message of everyone at Osasuna sticking together through hard times hitting a chord with many.
14/01/2021. Osasuna es penúltimo y encadena 12 jornadas sin ganar. Braulio Vázquez, director deportivo del club, defiende al entrenador, Jagoba Arrasate: “El barco llegará a puerto o no, pero lo hará con el mismo capitán”. pic.twitter.com/o5wCOrRecn
— Sphera Sports (@SpheraSports) April 4, 2023
“I was clear and not because Jagoba is my friend, but because we had seven injured players and referee calls had gone against us,” Vazquez says now. “I spoke with the president and we knew we had to send a very strong message. Another president might not have agreed and might have said I should go, too.”
It proved a correct call and Osasuna’s form soon picked up, climbing the table steadily to finish 11th. A further sign of the stability came that summer when Moncoyola, then 23, turned down offers from England and Italy to sign a 10-year contract.
“I went to El Sadar practically every weekend from when I was three years old,” Moncoyola says. “I’ve seen different times in the club, almost making the Champions League, almost being relegated to the third tier. One of the reasons I renewed my contract for such a long time is that the team is growing, I love the project. I’m lucky to play every weekend with people I’ve been playing with for many years, all the way up the ranks. I hope today’s kids can have very good memories of these good times for Osasuna.”
Those kids today are also coming to a very different El Sadar. In February 2019, rojillo socios voted to increase the old stadium’s capacity by 5,000 to 23,576 and add a new uniform metallic outer ring. The club financed the entire €23.3m cost itself, trusting that expanded VIP and executive areas could bring around €3m in very useful non-matchday revenue going forward.
Fans at El Sadar want their team to show values of effort, intensity and teamwork. They are proud that 12 youngsters from their Tajonar academy have been promoted to the first-team squad over the past five years, with 21-year-old playmaker Aimar Oroz a standout during the 2022-23 campaign.
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Still, the club has also been open to bringing in quality from outside. Croatian striker Ante Budimir was signed for a club-record €8m from Mallorca in the summer of 2021. Other key additions include forward Chimy Avila from Argentine team San Lorenzo in 2019 for €2.7m and playmaker Moi Gomez from Villarreal for €1.8m last summer. They have also played the loan market cleverly, getting Morocco international winger Abde Ezzalzouli from Barcelona for the current campaign.
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“We have an identity as 70% of our players are from Navarre or from the youth system,” says Vazquez. “We try to make very few additions every season. We now have players in midfield, like Moi, quality but also hard-working. Chimy is different, Latin culture, had a different childhood. And Abde, I couldn’t even tell you, but the key is to fit them all together.”
Since reaching the final back in early April, Osasuna, Pamplona and Navarre have been completely taken over by Copa fever. The club hierarchy are proud that every one of their 19,208 club socios who requested a ticket, and another 350 long-time followers, can be at Cartuja on Saturday. Canal adds that every club member, including the president and players’ families, have had to pay the full price.
“We’re so happy to be able to get tickets for every one of our socios,” says Canal. “They are the ones who have supported us, pushed us to this stage. We have all been together, down in Segunda Division, battling in difficult stadiums. I probably will never live another Copa del Rey final. It will be the best thing to happen to most of us in our football lives.”
Special commemorative jerseys have been released with the phrase ‘Cuestion de Alma’ (Question of Soul), recalling words used to describe the club by its former Ireland international Michael Robinson, who died in 2020. Some of the 2005 Copa finalists including Punal, Savo Milosevic and Pablo Garcia were acclaimed at a packed El Sadar before last weekend’s La Liga game against Real Sociedad.
❤️🔥 En las victorias. En las derrotas. Siempre.
𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐒 𝐔𝐍 𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐏𝐎#CuestiónDeAlma pic.twitter.com/UFFiQ06Of3
— C. A. OSASUNA (@Osasuna) April 28, 2023
“Our greatest pride is who we represent,” Arrasate says. “Not just in the final, but in every game we play, we represent Navarre and our badge. There is a huge feeling of belonging, in Pamplona and the whole region. Many people have never experienced reaching a final. They now feel proud of Osasuna. For us, being able to generate this excitement among our fans makes us feel very happy and proud.”
There has also been an uncomfortable reminder of the club’s past when former president Izco died on April 21. Not so long ago, Osasuna’s brand was worth very little as previous presidents had left huge debts and match-fixing scandals. Now they are prepared for the biggest occasion in the club’s history.
''Vamos a jugar la final de Copa''. Ancelotti 🤝 Jagoba. #ElDíaDespués pic.twitter.com/lR1BVyVTEq
— Fútbol en Movistar Plus+ (@MovistarFutbol) February 20, 2023
“This game will be a very big, important push for us,” says Canal. “Our path has not been easy, we have had agonising games against clubs with four times our budget, but our team came through due to their soul. The club is growing in many ways. At the start of the season, we had around 800,000 followers on social media, now we have five million. That is the fruit of the good work and good results of recent years. We are all excited about how far we’ve come, but we have many more challenges ahead.”
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Osasuna embraced the idea of Saturday’s game as the culmination of an eight-year journey when they organised a billboard outside the Nova Creu Alta stadium recalling the day the club almost lost everything back in 2015: ‘Every happy story has a starting point – ours was Sabadell.’
“In those times, the club was very bad institutionally,” says Sabalza. “So for me, there is satisfaction that the fans are back with the team and that the club is respected and admired in many cases. But we cannot lose our heads now, so remembering Sabadell is good, as we were very down then.
“This final is not the end of the path, not at all. We want people to say ‘Woah, here comes Osasuna, they are a dangerous, serious rival’. And to know that Navarre is proud again of the club.”
(Top photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images. Design: Eamonn Dalton)
