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«Goal in Las Gaunas». The iconic scream that was heard on sports radios for more than a decade will sound again from the next season after the promotion to the Second Division held on Saturday by the Logroñés Sports Union, a success that returns La Rioja to professional football after a 20-year absence. Your president, Felix Revuelta, was ambitious yesterday for the return: “I don’t want to play just to keep up, because when you do something just to approve, it is when it is suspended.”
He triumph against Castellón in the penalty shootout who decided the first playoff championship tie for promotion allows the UD Logroñés face the definitive step to finish settling the project that began in 2009 months after the painful disappearance of the Club Deportivo Logroñés, the team that made that shout “goal in Las Gaunas” fashionable after ascending to the First Division (1987). A team that stayed ten years among the greats and whose bench passed illustrious as Miguel Ángel Lotina, David Vidal or Carlos Aimar, the Argentine who activated his players with a sharp blow to the chest before jumping onto the pitch. Footballers like Julen Lopetegui, The mythical Tato Abbey or russian Salenko They tried those caresses before CD Logroñés went into a spin, a fall that was unstoppable.
After definitively saying goodbye to the First Division in 1997, La Riojans began a black decade plagued by incidents, administrative declines and a tortuous path to the disappearance of that historic Logroñés after failing to appear in two Third Division games, which led to his expulsion from the League (2009).
Two new teams
The disappearance of Logroñés of all the life it did not suppose the death of soccer in the La Riojan capital because a double reaction took place. Partners and fans turned the exteriors of Las Gaunas on stage of assemblies until birth of the SD Logroñés, a club that is still managed by its members and that in the 2009-10 season began to compete in the last category of regional football and is now fighting to ascend to Second B.
Parallel to that popular shareholder team, the well-known businessman from La Rioja Felix Revuelta, owner of Naturhouse, lit the UD Logroñés when acquiring the place in Segunda B owned by CD Varea, a neighborhood club that surprisingly had access to Segunda B. As in the case of SD Logroñés, the premiere was in the 2009-10 League, although directly in the bronze category. The union in soccer of Logroño has been impossible and there has been no way to merge both projects despite the attempts by the town hall.
“Many people know that this was a dream they had for 11 years and it has come at a critical moment, I hope it was a bit of fresh air for the city and for La Rioja,” he said yesterday. Felix Revuelta. Castellón was the last obstacle of a magnificent season in which the UD Logroñés It was the team with the most points it had, the most scorer and the least scored of the four groups of Second B when the coronavirus forced to suspend the regular League. From now on, the president will have to face a very different situation for his club, «which will become a professional team with all that this implies, and not just because of the entity’s budget. We are going to go from having an impact of about two million euros to twenty ».
UD Logroñés promotes professional football with a man from the house on the bench, Sergio Rodríguez, former rojiblanco captain who hung up his boots in 2013. “We have won by heart, it is a team that has a soul, very united,” said the coach to explain the key to success after the La Riojans played the extension against Castellón for the ousama expulsion in the last minutes of the second half.
Caesar Caneda, the veteran captain, reflects the commitment of the La Rioja squad. The 41-year-old defender from Vitoria has the record of games played in the first three categories of Spanish football (792) and this season has been the only one that has appeared in all the matches of the Logroño team, with which he was fulfilled this Saturday. the dream of returning to the category in which he last played in 2015 with Mirandés. “The promotion is an immense joy because a city like Logroño, after so many years, deserved it.”
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