One of the most spectacular tales of unexpected glory came from a small city of 200,000 people,
in Galicia, A Coruña.
Apart from a 9-year cameo in the top flight in the 1940s, Deportivo La Coruña, spent
the majority of their history in the second division,. After dropping back more permanently
in the 70s, Depor even flirted with the third tier on a couple of occasions.
By the end of the 1987/88 season, Depor had a debt of 500 million pesetas, just under
£2.5 million at 1988 exchange values). It was evident that a new strategic direction
was needed and in the summer of 1988 an assembly at the Colegio de Los Salessianos elected
Augusto César Lendoiro as the new chairman.
Lendoiro, who was born in A Coruña, knew the social importance of Deportivo la Coruña
community and was determined to address the club’s precarious situation. Outreach campaigns
were launched to improve the relationship between the fans and the club and attract
a new generation of supporters to the 5,000 existing socios. A long-term plan for financial
stability and sporting progression had been drawn out.
The 1988/89 season saw few signings, but the squad achieved a respectable 11th in the Segunda
División. The summer of 1989 brought a collection of new signings, highlighting Lendoiro’s
early ambition. While the campaign looked to be headed for midtable mediocrity, seven
wins from their final eight matches saw Depor qualify for a promotion play-off game against
Tenerife.
Despite drawing the first leg on the Canary Islands, they would lose 0-1 at the Estadio
Riazor to miss the chance of promotion.
It was still clear that Deportivo La Coruña were heading in the right direction; the enormous
debt had been reduced to a manageable level, while club members had been incrementally
increasing to a total of 17,500 by 1990.
The momentum had been building, and in 1991, Deportivo clinched 2nd place in the Segunda
División, sealing automatic promotion to La Liga for the first time since 1973.
While many owners would have been satisfied enough with promotion, Lendoiro wanted more,
significantly upping the wage and transfer budget. Depor’s recruitment team had a two-pronged
approach, targeting veteran quality from Spain’s top clubs, coupled with hidden gems that had
been typically unearthed by the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid in the past.
In the first three years back in the top flight, in would come Luis López Rekarte and Ricardo
Serna from Barcelona, Adolfo Aldana from Real Madrid and Donato from Atlético Madrid, while
younger stars Bebeto, Mauro Silva and Fran were brought in from Vasco da Gama, Bragantino
and Deportivo’s B team respectively.
On the pitch, Depor were as dramatic as ever. Their first season back in La Liga saw them
struggle at the foot of the table for much of the campaign. Manager Marc Antonio Boronat
was sacked and club icon Arsenio Iglesias was reinstated as manager in April 1992.
Ultimately relying on a two-legged relegation play-off vs Real Betis to survive, Iglesias
kept Depor in La Liga and, in so doing, was able to launch the club’s new footballing
identity – ‘Super Depor’.
The 1992/93 season was an awakening, with Depor finishing third behind champions Barcelona
and runners up Real Madrid, qualifying for European football for the first time in their
history. Despite not winning any silverware, individual players were starting to gain recognition,
with Bebeto winning the Pichichi Trophy and goalkeeper Paco Liaño collecting the Ricardo
Zamora Trophy.
In 1993/94, Depor once again improved, this time battering Real Madrid 4-0 at Riazor and
leading La Liga from matchday 18 onwards. Only losing four games all season and conceding
18 goals in the 37 matches, Iglesias’ side went into the final matchday needing a win
at home to Valencia to clinch their first top division title. Barcelona, two points
behind Depor and desperate for a slip up, were hosting Sevilla.
The game at Riazor was tight, with the players visibly affected by the tension. At half time,
the score was 0-0 in Riazor. At Camp Nou, Barcelona were trailing 1-2. However, in a
gut-wrenching 45 minutes everything changed. In Barcelona, Hirsto Stoichkov, Romário,
Michael Laudrup and José Mari Bakero all scored as Barcelona came back to beat Sevilla
5-2.
In Coruña, Depor were still struggling to find the goal they needed when they were awarded
an injury time penalty. Regular penalty taker Donato had already been substituted while
Bebeto had missed one the previous week, so Serbian central defender Miroslav Djukić
stepped up.
Djukić took a deep breath and strode forward, only to tamely roll the ball into the hands
of Valencia keeper José Gonzáles, sending the title to Barcelona on goal difference.
While such a near miss could have easily drained Depor’s momentum, it didn’t. The next
season, Super Depor would again push for the La Liga title, this time finishing runners
up to an Iván Zamorano-inspired Real Madrid side.
It was in the Copa del Rey where Super Depor would banish the demons from their previous
season, facing Valencia in the final of the held at the Santiago Bernabéu. The first
game, tied at 1-1, was suspended after heavy rainfall and rescheduled. In the replay, three
days later, Depor enacted their revenge, winning 2-1 and claiming the first major silverware
in their history.
Iglesias left the club at the end of the season, heading into retirement a satisfied man. For
Lendoiro, however, there was more to be achieved and a new cycle to build. Welshman John Toshack
was brought in as the new head coach, having previously won the Copa del Rey trophy with
Real Sociedad and a La Liga title with Real Madrid.
The squad, however, was in transition with many of the players growing old with no fresh
competition. In 95/96, Depor stalled to a 9th place La Liga finish, were knocked out
of the Copa by Valencia and out of Europe by PSG. In March of that season, Toshack accused
his squad of having “a lack of ambition, not being hungry enough and needing more bastards.”
Toshack very nearly didn’t make it to the end of that season, with fans starting to
turn on the Welshman.
He would survive and was tasked with the difficult job of dismantling and rebuilding Depor.
Pay television had been on the rise across Europe in the 90s, but football clubs in Spain
did not sell their TV rights collectively, but individually instead and on a club-by-club
basis. This created a huge financial imbalance between the haves and have nots, as Barcelona
and Real Madrid could demand extortionate contracts due to the size of their fanbases.
‘Super Depor’, with the help of their recent meteoric rise and Lendoiro’s shrewdness,
negotiated a 7-year contact with Canal+, earning the club €135 million.
These new finances helped usher in a new wave of talent to replace the icons like Bebeto,
who would leave in the summer of 1996 to return to his native Brazil. Lendoiro would break
the club’s transfer record to bring in Rivaldo for €7.5 million as well as his Palmeiras
teammates, Flavio Conceição and Djalminha. To improve the goalkeeping and centre-back
positions, Nuno Espírito Santo, Noureddine Naybet and Hélder Cristóvão were also brought
in from Portugal in January 1997.
Despite the influx of talent, Toshack criticised Lendoiro for spending too much on transfers
and not enough on training facilities. Results failed to drastically improve, and with Depor
sitting in 5th in La Liga and fans brining “Toshack Go Home” and “Toshack Bastard”
signs to games, the Welshman left the club.
Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Silva was brought in as his replacement.
Despite further investment in 1997, Depor were blindsided when Barcelona, just hours
before the transfer deadline, paid Rivaldo’s €25m buy-out clause. Combined with the departure
of Serbian stalwart Miroslav Djukić, the squad was left rudderless for the 97/98 season,
culminating in a first-round exit from the UEFA Cup to AJ Auxerre, a quarter-final exit
from the Copa to Alavés and a disappointing 12th place finish in La Liga. Head coach Silva
would pay for the disappointment with his job, leaving Depor before the end of the season.
To rejuvenate the club, Lendoiro needed a coach capable of building a title-winning
team from the squad he had assembled. Step forward neighbouring Celta Vigo coach Javier
Irureta, then renown for almost finishing in the top three the previous season despite
having a lower-midtable club budget.
In came new players like Gabriel Schürrer and Turu Flores, the latter going on to become
a vital goalscorer for the club. While the campaign started poorly, with Depor sitting
in 12th by mid-January, they ended up narrowly missing out on Champions League qualification
(6th) and reaching a Copa del Rey semi-final.
Another wave of investment was released by Lendoiro in the summer of 1999 and the extra
funds were spent on Roy Makaay, César Martín, Víctor Sánchez and Slavisa Jokanovic. The
season started fantastically, with Makaay scoring a hattrick on his La Liga debut in
a 4-1 win over Alaves.
Between October and December, the club would go on a seven-game winning streak, conquering
Barcelona and Atletico Madrid along the way, to stretch their lead to at the top of La
Liga to eight points. But with their progress serene, Depor felt the pressure once more,
taking just one point from the next 12 available and allowing their lead to ebb away.
On March 18th, Depor headed to Nou Camp and lost 2-1 to Barcelona thanks to a winner from
Rivaldo, of all people. Their lead was cut further, to just two points. The final eight
games were tense. Fantastic wins away at Sevilla (1-3) and at home to Atletico Madrid (4-1)
were undermined by losses to Rayo Vallecano (2-0) and Celta Vigo (2-1), leaving Depor’s
fans’ nerves in shreds for the final three games of the season.
Fortunately for them, Barcelona picked up just one point from their final three games,
allowing Depor, on 19th May 2000 against Espanyol, to win their first La Liga title of their
94-year history, also qualifying for the Champions League for the first time ever in the process.
The club spent the next four years consolidating the Super Depor brand, impressing in highlight
reel games across Europe; a 2-3 win at the Nou Camp for the first time in their history
(00/01), a 4-3 win vs PSG having been 0-3 down (00/01), 2-1 vs Manchester United (01/02),
2-0 vs Arsenal (01/02) and attained their pinnacle in 03/04, when they reached the Champions
League semi-finals, only to be knocked out by eventual winners Porto.
Further glory was won in the form of another Copa del Rey in 2002, made extra sweet by
beating Real Madrid 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabéu on the day of Los Blancos’ 100th anniversary.
But Super Depor would never conquer La Liga again. Between 2004 and 2006 the club would
lose coach Irureta and midfielders Fran and Mauro Silva. Makaay was sold to Bayern Munich,
Djalminha was released, and the ageing Naybet departed for Tottenham. With debts in excess
of €90m, the steady leak of players became a fire sale.
A public statement from Lendoiro that the club would be focusing on signing youth was
a clear raising of the financial white flag and, accordingly, Depor gradually deteriorated
into a lower mid-table club, before falling out of La Liga altogether in 2011.
In December 2012, it was announced that Deportivo would declare a state of insolvency. In December
2013, Lendoiro announced that he wouldn’t be re-standing for election, ending his 25-year
stewardship of the club. The era of ‘Super Depor’ was over.
“My big mistake was not selling players when I could” he recalled in 2009, “but
that is the illusion of winning titles.”